<div dir="ltr"><div>Thank you <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">- I'll see if I can find it. I found an old NPR interview with Carr about the book that's making me rethink the entire framing.</span></div><div><p class="gmail-whitespace-normal gmail-break-words" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">What strikes me is Carr's point that solitary, prolonged concentration is "an aberration in the great sweep of intellectual history" - it only emerged with printed books. Museums are asking for that same aberration: sustained, focused attention on objects.</p><p class="gmail-whitespace-normal gmail-break-words" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">But we're building technology that returns visitors to what Carr calls our "natural state of distractedness." Apps that interrupt. Screens that fragment. Interfaces optimized for skimming.</p><p class="gmail-whitespace-normal gmail-break-words" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">The challenge should never be to make museums more digital. It's preserving and supporting (including with digital tools) that "aberration" of deep attention that makes museum encounters meaningful.</p><p class="gmail-whitespace-normal gmail-break-words" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">Appreciate the recommendation.</p></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><p style="font-size:13px;margin:0px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal"><b>Sincerely / Med Venlig Hilsen</b><b></b></p><p style="font-size:13px;margin:0px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal;min-height:15px"><br></p><p style="font-size:13px;margin:0px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal">Thor Martin Baerug</p><p style="font-size:13px;margin:0px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal"><a href="https://walkietalk.ie/" target="_blank">https://walkietalk.ie/</a></p><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div></div></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Nov 6, 2025 at 2:39 PM Callomon,Paul <<a href="mailto:prc44@drexel.edu">prc44@drexel.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class="msg-6926357189010503193">





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<p class="MsoNormal">I recommend reading “The Shallows: How the Internet is changing the way we read, think and remember” by Nicholas Carr.<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shallows_(book)" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shallows_(book)</a><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black">Paul Callomon</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black"><br>
<i>Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates</i></span><span><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;color:black">Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black"><br>
<i><a href="mailto:callomon@ansp.org" target="_blank">callomon@ansp.org</a> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170<u></u><u></u></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(69,176,225)">President of the American Malacological Society for 2027</span></b><b><span style="color:rgb(69,176,225)"><u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> Nhcoll-l <<a href="mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces@mailman.yale.edu" target="_blank">nhcoll-l-bounces@mailman.yale.edu</a>>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Thor Martin Jensen<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, November 6, 2025 8:36 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:nhcoll-l@mailman.yale.edu" target="_blank">nhcoll-l@mailman.yale.edu</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Nhcoll-l] Visitor Attention as a Design Constraint in Digital Collections<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="m_-6926357189010503193gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="color:black">Dear colleagues,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="m_-6926357189010503193gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="color:black">There's a viral photo of visitors on their phones in the Louvre's Grande Galerie that's sparked the usual "phones are ruining museums" discourse. But I think it actually illustrates
 a fundamental design problem in how we've approached digital interpretation.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="m_-6926357189010503193gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="color:black">After two decades building digital technology products, I've come to believe we miscalculated the core problem. It was never about access to information - it was about attention
 as a finite resource.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="m_-6926357189010503193gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="color:black">I've written about this tension and what it means for how we think about visitor technology: <a href="https://thormartinbaerug.com/2025/11/05/how-were-building-museum-technology-that-gets-out-of-the-way/" target="_blank">https://thormartinbaerug.com/2025/11/05/how-were-building-museum-technology-that-gets-out-of-the-way/</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="m_-6926357189010503193gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="color:black">The argument centers on why audio-first approaches preserve visual attention in ways that screen-based interpretation cannot, and why the "technology that disappears" principle
 matters more than feature richness.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="m_-6926357189010503193gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="color:black">Would be interested in perspectives from colleagues working in collections with diverse audiences and interpretation needs.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif">Sincerely / Med Venlig Hilsen</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif">Thor Martin Baerug<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif"><a href="https://walkietalk.ie/" target="_blank">https://walkietalk.ie/</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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