Véronique Baudoin was thrilled at the idea of visiting the Biodôme with her children and those of an English-speaking friend. But once there, between the boreal forest and the tropical jungle, this primary school teacher was very disappointed to find no explanatory panel that would give information on the animals observed.
“I wasn’t sure of the names of the animals,” she says in an interview. My boy asks me questions, I look for signs, and there are none. “There are a few leaflets that were distributed at the entrance, but not all the animals appear there, she said. There are also guides scattered around the Biodôme, but you have to find them, and that day, like many others, the Biodôme was packed. “I’m sure the guides are super good. But will they follow us everywhere to offer explanations? she asks.
Instead, it is suggested that he download an application to his phone to obtain feedback on the environments visited. At a time when young people are asked to “limit their screen time”, and teachers to encourage reading in various situations, the process goes wrong. Furious at being sent back to her smart phone while on a family outing, she wrote a letter to the Biodôme’s customer service department the next day.
“Oh! I have to download the application and I will have all the information on my phone? And if I feel like looking at something other than a screen, for once, let my gaze wander in the natural landscapes and still have the possibility of knowing what I see? Not possible. There are no panels. What if my 12 year old doesn’t have a phone? Not possible either? That’s right, he just has to stay with me, his mother, who has a phone and downloaded the app! What if he just doesn’t want to stay with me? He’ll still be able to explore on his own, he just won’t quite know what he’s seeing. »
In response to his letter, the Biodôme first wrote: “The closure of the Biodôme for major renovations in recent years has enabled the teaching team to review the museum approach of the establishment. While studies have shown us that barely 5% of people read the interpretation panels, it was decided to remove them when the Biodôme reopened. These studies, specifies Anne Bourgoin, communications officer for Space for Life, “were commissioned by the Biodôme from museology students from the École du Louvre and the University of Montreal”.
We go on to say that “the transmission of scientific knowledge is done mainly through the team of specialized educators”. And that there is, of course, a mobile application which has been designed to provide information, quizzes, even augmented reality to accompany visitors during their visit.
In museology, however, a current seems to be emerging on the horizon, in favor of a certain decrease in the digitization of content, according to Flavio Cardellicchio, who is pursuing a doctorate in connection with digital museology and who teaches on the subject.
In this regard, he quotes the Italian museologist Eva Sandri, who already wrote, in 2017, that “in the face of the enthusiasm for technologies on the part of a large number of museums, we observe in parallel actions which tend to attenuate , or even to erase the presence of digital devices. These logics take two main forms. One of the current tendencies of these devices is to get closer to a material production […]. Other museums go further and promote to their public a certain nostalgic charm of the pre-digital museum”.
This need to turn off cell phones to enter an essentially physical environment at the museum could have been accentuated with the pandemic, which confined us behind screens for many years, he says.
This omnipresence of cell phone use in cultural and public places is not limited to museums. It is spreading in theaters, where you often have to download the program before being told to turn off the devices, or in restaurants, where you access the menu by a barcode that you have to scan.
For communication professor Vincent Duclos-Bélanger, this overuse of the cell phone in cultural and public places has the effect of widening the “digital divide”, which separates people who use a smart phone and those who do not.
In Quebec, he says, 35% of people aged 65 and over do not have a smartphone, according to data from the Institut de la statistique du Québec. This is also the case for 18% of the population who have no school diploma. Moreover, the percentage of people using a smart phone is higher in Montreal than in the rest of Quebec.
A capital gain
“The idea is not to be technophobic or to consider that digital has no place in culture”, he specifies, adding that digital often offers “real added value in terms of experience”.
“But in a case like that of the Space for Life, if indeed we only digitize the physical educational content, it seems to me that it is problematic in terms of access, he explains. As you mentioned, if we add up all these experiences (museum, restaurant, public transit, etc.) access to which is increasingly digital, we risk exacerbating existing social inequalities (between ages, social class, literacy level, etc.). We disqualify or further exclude people who already have little or less access to certain spaces. »
It should be noted that following calls from the To have to, the Biodôme added that the team has been working “on a project to add signage for some time. This signage will make it possible to identify the species presented in the ecosystems, and we are working to ensure that it integrates well with the environment so as not to break the feeling of immersion, “said communication officer Marie-Joëlle. Filion.