For its summer 2011 issue, the Nordisk Museologi journal (www.nordiskmuseologi.org) has decided to focus on digital museology. The subjects and the articles in this particular issue have therefore been developed in collaboration with the NODEM (www.nodem.dk/om) (Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums) conference held in Copenhagen in November 2010.
Like other issues of the journal, the summer issue of Nordisk Museologi can be purchased via the web site or via the Museum Service in Denmark (see www.museumstjenesten.com).

Digital museology is not a new field, in either scientific or institutional terms. In 1999, Steve Dietz, then leader of New Media Initiatives at the Walker Art Gallery in Minneapolis, USA, published an article entitled ”CyberMuseology: Taking the museum to the Net/bringing digital media to the museum” on the Internet. In this article, he argued that ”cybermuseology” would come to shift the focal point of museology away from physical collections to digital databases, from special exhibitions to online exhibitions, from one-way communication to interactivity and communication. Dietz used an idea about both Museum 2. 0 and 3.0.
In the same article, Dietz wrote the following about ”Museum 3.0”: ”‘Museum 3.0’ will be a hybrid that is both physical and digital, both center and a node in the network, destination and portal, museum and archive. The more seamlessly the aspects are integrated, the greater the potential to engage our audience, anytime, anywhere, including here and now. To achieve this evolutionary mutation, we must learn how to socialize cyberspace. It must be a place and a means for interaction between people, not just ideas.”
For most museums, Museum 3.0 is still a long way from becoming reality. Nevertheless, museums the world over have had to rethink their own status as a venue and as an organisation, as well as rethinking the role they play in society as a whole. And this is an ongoing process. This is why the authors of the articles in this issue have a particular focus on the process of rethinking how museums communicate with the society around them, and how knowledge can be garnered with the help of new social media.
Digital museology will leave its mark on museums and corresponding cultural heritage institutions for many years to come. It will also adjust or alter their self-perceptions and the assignments they have to conduct in relation to the society around them. Furthermore, the theories derived from the related media sciences will provide new nourishment for the conceptual basis of museology.

From the preface to Nordisk Museologi no. 1 2011 by Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson and Ane Hejlskov Larsen.