Crafting the next generation of web-based learning tools for manuscript artefacts in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. A focus on science, technology, and engineering codices, world maps, and archival documents in exhibition settings

Abstract

This paper starts with a review of the secondary literature published in English about the strengths and weaknesses of the web-based learning tools available in museum systems as brought forward by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Next, this review contextualises the solutions designed and developed within the Engineering-Historical-Memory online interactive system to fully access permanent and temporary exhibitions and discover the knowledge embedded in manuscript artefacts via the visitor's smart device or institutional interactive screens. With these solutions, the original artefacts, or their physical and digital replicas, become gateways to online interactive applications. These applications provide high-definition 2D and 3D reproductions of the artefacts and make them explorable by free navigation or via graphs and geospatial views with an automatic real-time update for relevant scholarly publications, images, and videos.