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Hello,

We are currently working on a photography exhibit that holds around 2300 photographs of original allottees of the Osage Nation.

We would like to be able to have the photographs on a touch screen where patrons can come in and search for their relative by name or allottee number. Once the person has been searched we would like their photograph to pop up and it is our hope to also be able to add additional documentation related to the individuals onto the display such as written documents and additional photographs.

Does anyone have any experience with a touch screen display like this? Please let me know if you have any software suggestions, vendor suggestions, general advise or lessons learned when putting together a display of this nature.

Thank you!

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Hallie Winter
Curator
Osage Nation Museum
Pawhuska OK
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If you can, please add audio to screen for visitors who are blind or have low vision.  I know the women's  military musuem in Arlington has something you might be interested in.  Shirley

The Frick has done some interesting work with touch screen and orientation experience. The Frick Orientation Center Interactive Experiences

Also, El Paso Museum has a touch Wall that is interactive with 2D/3D components to tell the history of El Paso. People are able to contribute comments and information and this is then managaged through the content management system.
Touching Texas The new Wall 1

Your limitation is your budget. How big do you want the touchscreen?  A 22" ELO touchscreen costs about $500-$600 and as you get bigger so does the cost.

As for software you can choose a lot of different options; You can use online services like Flickr or HTML 5 there are a ton of photography templates.  You can also use Flash this option would require more programming.  

Your hardware should be an windows computer.  Intel has a great computer called the NUC which has a very small footprint and you can output to 2 monitors at the same time to make a 22" touchscreen a 44" touchscreen (2 - 22" touchscreens).  The NUC with an i7 processor, 16GB ram and 120GB SSD drive will cost about $650 - $700. 

So again it depends on how large of a screen you want but I would recommend the using HTML 5, if you want you can even use Wordpress so it can be easier to update.  I don't recommend hosting it on a web site and using internet to display in the exhibition space.  Doing this you run the risk of your WiFi or internet going down and your interactive not working.  You can run this as a local web site and use WiFi for things like posting to Facebook or Twitter.

Raymond

It's been a few years since my visit, but I believe the Cleveland Museum of Art introduction wall does something similar (their ArtLens/GalleryOne installation).

I program the touch interactives at our museum, and have learned one thing over the years, the hardware you choose is key.

Recently I found a great product that address a lot of the problem we have with 'wondering small fingers' 

We have used every manor of touch screen from Planar to All in ones to commercial units. I found the below,

Elo Touch Systems 2201L 22" LED LCD Touchscreen Monitor

To work great for the following reasons,

It is all metal framed, with a metal stand and base.

The base has a hidden pathway that allows you to hind all of the cables inside completely. 

Also the power buttons are hidden on the bottom, but can be locked out, with a special button press, to keep visitors from changing settings, or powering it off. 

The angle adjustment is firm, ( will not move when you poke at it. ) but can be changed to suit a tall or short visitor.

It also has a built in speaker system that is not bad considering.

I have attached some pictures of a new Kiosk of ours in the midst of being finished. You can see that no cables are visible! they all run through a small hole at the base.

Last, the keyboard is one I found that has worked great for the museum world, it is all stainless, sealed, and almost indestructible! The company will custom make them with any key caps you want, for example we order ours without the dreaded Ctrl+Alt+Del Keys.

Any questions let me know, I don't mean this to be a product advertisement, just wanted to share the luck and joy we found in this hardware. 

 What you are describing is a very typical interactive program and there are many ways to approach it. Here are two methods:

First, use a Bright Sign player built into a 22" video panel (AVNU 22” Integrated Touch Screen) and work with a Bright Sign developer to create the program. This is an economical approach and we are using this system for the Herreshoff Maritime Museum.

Secondly, Boston Productions Incorporated (BPI) has an off-the-shelf program ready to go that is elegant and would work very well for this.

Good luck!