The State Hermitage has launched a new navigation system for its visitors. Five state-of-the-art interactive navigation kiosks are already operating in the Main Museum Complex.
The have been installed by the Jordan and Church Staircases that are the starting points for a visit to the Hermitage for the majority of people, and also at major junctions on the way through the museum halls.
The kiosks will help people to get their bearings within the existing routes, to find a short way to a particular hall or exhibit that interests them, to move around the museum without breaking the “traffic rules” and to plot a course to their required elements of the museum’s infrastructure (cafés, toilets, lifts and so on). The navigation kiosks will also provide an answer to the most frequently asked question of all – “How do I get to the exit?”
Every visitor is able to obtain an individually tailored route plan through the museum by choosing a preferred theme or indicating how much time they have available. This is especially relevant in the current conditions of strict channelling of movement around the complex. For visitors’ convenience, there is a facility to download the resulting route plan to a smartphone.
The kiosks can also provide other useful information, about the masterpieces of the collection, for example, or else events and exhibitions in the museum. Using the built-in camera, visitors can take a photograph as a souvenir of their time at the museum and e-mail it to themselves. The kiosks also provide an opportunity to record their opinion of the museum by means of a feedback form.
The new navigation system is integrated with the official State Hermitage website, meaning that the latest information is relayed immediately. In order to make the navigation capabilities accessible to the greatest number of Hermitage visitors, the “Your Electronic Guide” system has two working languages – Russian and English.
The interactive “Your Electronic Guide” project has been implemented as part of the long-term collaboration between the Hermitage and the IT-company CROC in conjunction with Initium and LG.
Commenting on the launch of the project, Alexei Bogdanov, Deputy General Director of the State Hermitage, said: “The Hermitage has employed one more remarkable tool for the orientation of visitors. On the website we have published guides to all the routes; there is a virtual visit option; visitors can hire audio-guides in the museum. And now modern, stylish, automatically updating pieces of technology have appeared – interactive navigation kiosks to which further programs can also be added in the future.”
Dmitry Shabanov, head of the multimedia systems sector at CROC, stated: “We are proud of our collaboration with the State Hermitage and delighted to be making this museum complex even more convenient for visitors. This up-to-date navigation solution is entirely in keeping with the museum’s high status.”
