Mobile applications in museums – review and analysis of Polish projects

Cultural heritage institutions (e.g. museums) expand the scope of information technology adaptation and make mobile applications available to the users. Up to date mobile devices (like smartphones or tablets) become fully functional devices for display and interaction with online museum information resources. This type of information dissemination can be exploited efficiently in shaping information literacies for young users for whom mobile device has become a major tool for communication, entertainment and knowledge acquisition. The paper presents the results of comparative analysis of mobile applications for museum information services in Poland. The study covered recent and most popular mobile application for online exhibitions and for accessing museum collections and it has been limited to mobile applications for Android operation system. The analysis was based on selected applications highly rated on Google Play Store and AppBrain.com. The popularity of mobile applications was established based on statistical data- rating score, user comments and the total number of downloads. The study indicates selected features such as mobile devices capacities, built-in mechanisms (gyroscope, GPS, camera), interactivity and multimedia features