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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.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shallows_(book)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shallows_(book)</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Paul Callomon</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual"><br>
<i>Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates</i></span><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual"><br>
<i><a href="mailto:callomon@ansp.org">callomon@ansp.org</a> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif;color:#45B0E1;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">President of the American Malacological Society for 2027</span></b><b><span style="color:#45B0E1;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces@mailman.yale.edu>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Thor Martin Jensen<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, November 6, 2025 8:36 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> nhcoll-l@mailman.yale.edu<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Nhcoll-l] Visitor Attention as a Design Constraint in Digital Collections<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p><b><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;font-variant:small-caps;color:black">External.</span></b><b><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;font-variant:small-caps"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<p class="gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="color:black">Dear colleagues,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:.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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:.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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:.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/">https://thormartinbaerug.com/2025/11/05/how-were-building-museum-technology-that-gets-out-of-the-way/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:.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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="color:black">Would be interested in perspectives from colleagues working in collections with diverse audiences and interpretation needs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif">Sincerely / Med Venlig Hilsen</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif">Thor Martin Baerug<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif"><a href="https://walkietalk.ie/">https://walkietalk.ie/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="gmail-whitespace-normal" style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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