Contextual, Holistic, and Purposeful: A Re-framing of Digital Skills for Museums

By considering the current ecosystem of digital skills development in museums (given particular attention to its focus and setting of the UK), and by reflecting upon a series of creative action research interventions co-designed and delivered with an alliance of museum partners and professional bodies, this chapter makes a case for a new integrative approach to building digital confidence within the sector – one that distinctively gives primacy to context (of the individual and the institution), and that encourages a holistic and institution-wide approach. In doing so the discussion here not only provides the conceptual ‘framings’ and everyday tools for leading effectively digital change in the museum, but it does so in way that challenges what it sees as some entrenched normative approaches to skills development, creating instead a fresh set of co-ordinates for discourse, practice and purpose around digital technology. In effect, a new signature for digital within the museum.