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The Internet of Things in the Cultural Heritage Sector

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 May 2020) | Viewed by 16988

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Computing, Sheffield Hallam University, Howard St, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK
Interests: Internet of Things; smart devices; tangible interaction; heritage; personalization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Museums and cultural heritage sites have often experimented with digital technologies as a way of providing new means of engaging with visitors. This has included a variety of different forms of interaction, whether on-site during a visit, or online before or after the visit. Ranging from mobile apps, through interactive tables, tangible interaction and on-line post-visit experiences, these technologies have aimed to engage visitors in new and interesting ways and to promote interaction with heritage in a different way to the more traditional museum text label. The increasing development of IoT technologies offers huge potential for cultural heritage sites to extend the ways in which they use such new technologies and the possibilities that they offer both for visitors and for the heritage sites themselves. IoT also enables heritage organisations to gather data about how visitors interact with the heritage on display, to personalise the visitor experience, and to extend the visit past the on-site interaction to other aspects of visitors’ lives.

This special issue offers an opportunity to discuss the ways in which IoT and cultural heritage can interact and the impact that each field can have on the other, whether from a technological, heritage, business, artistic or other perspective. We welcome submissions (from any domain) that focus on the potential offered by IoT in the cultural heritage sector.

Dr. Mark T Marshall
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Internet of Things
  • Cultural Heritage
  • Smart Systems
  • Personalisation
  • Visitor Experience
  • Digital Heritage

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 336 KiB  
Article
The IoT as a Key in the Sensitive Balance between Development Needs and Sustainable Conservation of Cultural Resources in Italian Heritage Cities
by Antonella Lerario
Sustainability 2020, 12(17), 6952; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12176952 - 26 Aug 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3257
Abstract
In recent years the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to the built heritage has been increasingly finalized to heritage promotion in order to maximize visitor flows. New urgent challenges facing built heritage loom now over its very existence and our possibilities [...] Read more.
In recent years the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to the built heritage has been increasingly finalized to heritage promotion in order to maximize visitor flows. New urgent challenges facing built heritage loom now over its very existence and our possibilities to preserve it for future generations. Italian heritage cities represent a delicate context, where concerns related to tourist flows and resource consumption are amplified due to the concentration of sites and points of interests in urban areas, also in very small ones, while tourism remains vital for economic growth. In such contexts, balancing economic development and sustainable heritage conservation demands well-calibrated tools and approaches. The article presents an overview of the ways the Internet of Things (IoT) is currently used to solve urban issues and support heritage projects. On this basis, and considering the characters and problems typical of heritage cities, as well as the features of the Italian scenario, the most appropriate application lines of IoT for the Italian heritage cities are identified. Then, their potentialities, the mutual impacts between them and the heritage field and the key role of the IoT in supporting the delicate balance between economic development and cultural resource conservation are finally discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Internet of Things in the Cultural Heritage Sector)
34 pages, 5768 KiB  
Article
An IoT Smart Infrastructure for S. Domenico Church in Matera’s “Sassi’’: A Multiscale Perspective to Built Heritage Conservation
by Antonella Lerario and Antonietta Varasano
Sustainability 2020, 12(16), 6553; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166553 - 13 Aug 2020
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 5107
Abstract
Architectural heritage is perhaps the most important marker of the Italian and European landscapes. Over the last decades, its strategic relevance for local economic development has led to prioritize tourism-oriented promotion objectives. Therefore, new light has been thrown on once unknown resources that [...] Read more.
Architectural heritage is perhaps the most important marker of the Italian and European landscapes. Over the last decades, its strategic relevance for local economic development has led to prioritize tourism-oriented promotion objectives. Therefore, new light has been thrown on once unknown resources that have thus received the attention of tourists interested in new visit experiences. To this end, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have delivered a crucial support mainly in terms of public attraction and creation of new cultural offers. However, new urgent challenges now face tangible heritage, whose physical existence is jeopardized through extreme events and poor maintenance. Unexpected intense visit flows represent in themselves a further threat for sensitive heritages. ICTs have then to cope with more complex conservation tasks and the Internet of Things (IoT) can facilitate appropriate solutions. The paper presents a smart sensor-based infrastructure for the structural monitoring of S. Domenico Church in Matera, an emblematic city for the concerns described, which also highlighted the need for a wider conservation concept also embracing context and fruition issues. The article introduces the case study and its delicate environment, and the technological background of heritage monitoring solutions; the proposed IoT infrastructure is then described, discussing its potentialities and IoT contribution to creating more holistic and multiscale perspectives to heritage conservation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Internet of Things in the Cultural Heritage Sector)
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15 pages, 13422 KiB  
Article
A Prototype that Fuses Virtual Reality, Robots, and Social Networks to Create a New Cyber–Physical–Social Eco-Society System for Cultural Heritage
by Louis Nisiotis, Lyuba Alboul and Martin Beer
Sustainability 2020, 12(2), 645; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020645 - 15 Jan 2020
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 6551
Abstract
With the rapid development of technology and the increasing use of social networks, many opportunities for the design and deployment of interconnected systems arise that could enable a paradigm shift in the ways we interact with cultural heritage. The project described in this [...] Read more.
With the rapid development of technology and the increasing use of social networks, many opportunities for the design and deployment of interconnected systems arise that could enable a paradigm shift in the ways we interact with cultural heritage. The project described in this paper aims to create a new type of conceptually led environment, a kind of Cyber–Physical–Social Eco-Society (CPSeS) system that would seamlessly blend the real with virtual worlds interactively using Virtual Reality, Robots, and Social Networking technologies, engendered by humans’ interactions and intentions. The project seeks to develop new methods of engaging the current generation of museum visitors, who are influenced by their exposure to modern technology such as social media, smart phones, Internet of Things, smart devices, and visual games, by providing a unique experience of exploring and interacting with real and virtual worlds simultaneously. The research envisions a system that connects visitors to events and/or objects separated either in time or in space, or both, providing social meeting points between them. To demonstrate the attributes of the proposed system, a Virtual Museum scenario has been chosen. The following pages will describe the RoboSHU: Virtual Museum prototype, its capabilities and features, and present a generic development framework that will also be applicable to other contexts and sociospatial domains. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Internet of Things in the Cultural Heritage Sector)
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