The medical instruments of the last 50 years have 2 main features. Firstly, most of these objects appear as black or grey boxes, rather obscure and austere, and secondly, most of the inventors, creators, developers and users of these instruments are still alive today, so can be interviewed. Moreover, involved biological processes of new medicine are now concerned with nanoscience, which is more difficult to exhibit and explain.

So, virtual elements are an indispensable addition to real objects and exhibitions in museums and the digital or virtual can contribute to bringing a human dimension to these objects, offering better and more efficient explanations. It also provides insights into the corresponding innovation processes, and into the gestures of researchers, physicians and surgeons.

With these ideas in mind, for the last 10 years, we have been designing and developing several kinds of structured multimedia products:

-through “researcher stories”, backed up by the objects used or created, we show the roles played and work undertaken by researchers and clinicians (from pure biological research up to clinics). For example, in collaboration with the participants in this scientific and technical evolution, we have explained how cancer-fighting nuclear medicine is developing, from external radiotherapy to internal radio-immunotherapy by using radioactively charged antibodies to target residual microscopic tumors. In addition, we show how, since the 1990s, this same nuclear medicine has brought about improvements in imaging quality in oncology and progressively in cardiology, thanks to advances in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) associated with a scanner.

-by telling “research lab stories”, we describe how innovative individuals and transverse teams of different skills (from physicians to researchers in signal processing) can work together over time and use increasingly effective instruments in order to develop new therapies. For example, studies in the micro-circulation of blood require new instruments, and adapted methodology and innovative algorithms in signal processing. Another example concerns training surgeons in renal transplants: previously, this was taught by assisting experienced surgeons as they actually performed surgery, but now students learn by carrying out real transplants on pigs.

-through “innovation stories”, we explain that between the individual discovery of a new instrument and the actual commercial success of that innovation, there can be decades of collaboration between numerous specialists in manufacturing, instrumentation, advertising and management. For example, the invention of progressive lenses for correcting presbyopia occurred in around 1950 but it was not till around 3 decades later that the innovative Varilux lenses came into general usage and were widely adopted by wearers of bifocal glasses.

This mission, these tools and thee products based on ICT have created and continue to create at least 3 types of usage: patrimonial, scientific and cultural. The patrimonial usage, for asset protection, comes from the computer-based groupwork tool that we have developed in France (the Patstec web site) and which at least temporarily, allows us to preserve real objects in situ. The scientific usage is based on the audio and video archives mentioned previously, which show and explain the creations of inventions and innovations, interaction between researchers and objects and research procedures and professions, and generally speaking the sociology of research. Finally, the cultural usage concerns both teaching, that relies more and more on digital documents, and the broadcasting of scientific and technical culture that has to adapt to the new behaviour of a young public faced with ICT. This last usage should be backed up by assistants as the content is inevitably a little difficult.

As the principal target is high school students, these assistants are notably the high school teachers but can also be museum staff. And if, up to now, we have had DVD Roms as technical supports, today, with the generalization of web sites including streaming videos, we are now working on short duration summary videos that can be used inside museums or outside on web sites to prepare a museum visit, or follow up on one.

With the growing Internet Of Things (IOT), we can personify objects, by giving them intelligence and communication capacity. This refers to a unified way of identifying elements of digital information (website URLS) and physical elements by RFIS (Radio Frequency Identification Systems) chips and Bluetooth. It is a bridge between the physical and the virtual worlds: it is a new Internet which, via normalized and unified electronic identification systems and wireless mobile devices, will allow us to identify directly and unambiguously digital entities and physical objects. This in turn lets us retrieve, store, transfer and process the associated data with smooth continuity between the physical and virtual worlds.

We can imagine at least two uses of these new technologies in museums. Firstly, by simple use of a smartphone, the visitor to a real modern science and technology museum, in a personalized way and through multimedia information, view the objects on display and put them in perspective and in a dynamic context. Secondly, taking a different perspective, an Internet user could view an online exhibition and use a webcam to view the real objects as they are exposed in a real museum anywhere in the world.

So it is clear the technology is here with all types of cutting edge communication tools (Web 2.0, smartphones, iPads, etc.) according to the latest fashion, but the most important aspect is the quality, effectiveness and relevance of the content developed. This is why we need to develop more and more the stories behind contemporary research and innovations, using living participants and illustrate them in a highly pedagogical manner, despite the short length of the videos (a necessary evil in today’s culture of instant gratification).

To sum up, the digital or virtual contributes to bringing a human dimension to material components, which are naturally inanimate, austere and relatively obscure. Although some observers often complain of disembodiment, saying that the virtual cannot replace the material of a real museum (despite the abundance of “Do not touch” signs!). With the advent of the sensory Internet, the user will even be able to « touch » these real objects!

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