{"id":915,"date":"2007-06-02T09:01:24","date_gmt":"2007-06-02T08:01:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-11-18T15:05:47","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T15:05:47","slug":"object-locating-have-you-done-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/2007\/06\/02\/object-locating-have-you-done-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Object locating: have you done it?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve been very interested for some time in how you might go about tracking objects around a space, but I haven’t yet had a conversation with anyone in a museum who has actually done it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This could well be because it isn’t yet do-able, or more likely I just haven’t found the right people to talk to yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"CautionAs far as I can see there are a number of technologies which could be brought to bear, including RFID<\/a> (limited range, not so much “tracking” as “identifying”, and even then of variable usefulness in a museum system). The systems recently written about on the BBC<\/a>, however, use a series of wireless network points to pinpoint items within a space. I’d already looked at one of the systems written about – Ekahau<\/a> – but hadn’t got much further than a brief email correspondence with their technical team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ekahu system requires that you set up a number of (standard) wifi network points and then do a survey of the space – you essentially walk around and the system then maps out the various signal strengths, building up a map of the room or gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nice thing about this system is that to a certain extent it uses existing technologies – you may have to extend your wireless network points and install some software but that’s about it. The failure is that the accuracy is limited to metres – ok for tracking “assets” (including people!) in hospitals or schools, but limited for on-gallery or object store room use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where I know many institutions fail on this front is that it isn’t clear at all who should drive an object-location project. It’s very much the domain of curatorial staff, but IT, new media and interactive teams are all obviously involved as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d love to hear about any projects that have actually been done<\/strong> using location based technology. I’ve done lots and lots of reading of papers suggesting various solutions but what I’m interested in here is real world application. Has anyone done it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been very interested for some time in how you might go about tracking objects around a space, but I haven’t yet had a conversation with anyone in a museum who has actually done it. This could well be because it isn’t yet do-able, or more likely I just haven’t found the right people to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}