In the following paragraphs we present our requirements for a civilized and mutually beneficial cooperation with you. As a general principle, we consider that our contact with you through our Digital Services is a significant outward investment aimed at improving your experience. But despite the best of intentions, using the internet, as we all know, has some risks. For this reason we are determined to address the issues with you with integrity and boldness.
The right to use the Museum's Digital Services belongs to all of us. We simply need to be aware of a few conditions in order for this right to remain intact. These conditions include:
Our Digital Services include a multitude of information, photos, and other elements which are provided to the general public to enrich the visitor’s experience, information, and documentation of the material offered. However, the visitor must bear in mind the following obligations:
All the visual material provided by the Museum belongs, based on our laws and constitution, to the Greek State and its use is not allowed without prior permission from the offices of the Ministry of Culture. Its use by the public is for informational and educational purposes only. The photographic material relating to buildings or the history of the Museum are documented and therefore easily requested for permission to use for purposes other than the above.
The potential misuse of this material will limit our future ability to offer more material enriching the services provided to you. Our good-faith efforts in this area are comparable with other related bodies that use stamping or watermarking techniques that in essence alter the presentation of their material, recognizing on our part an open approach to providing material to the public.
The limited amount and type of personal information that will be requested from you by applications of the Museum’s Digital Services mainly concern identifying and communicating with you. These data are not used for commercial purposes for any reason, and even more importantly are never shared with third parties. Also, any activities that generate data through your own initiative and are stored on our infrastructures will not be further processed, either automatically or manually, with the aim of producing any marketable or non-marketable product. Your data may, however, undergo statistical processing, to provide data that will help us in the future to increase and expand the performance and reach of our services to you.
Digital Services are one of our "tools" to support you in your contact with our materials, our Culture, without limitations, without obstacles and ensuring your involvement in our work to the widest extent possible. After all, why else do we exist? Of course, we prefer to see you pass through our premises as often as possible, well informed, and that you leave us having lived as exciting an experience as possible. But it is utopian to expect that the whole world has the possibility to visit us on-site. That is why, through our Digital Services, over time you will be able to engage with the Museum in ways that would otherwise not have been possible.
Nothing can replace an actual visit to our premises. In digital media, the concept of physical dimensions, the play of light and sound, the gazes of other visitors, the browsing and navigation between and around the exhibits with which you can "converse" are lost. These experiences cannot take place on a computer screen, a TV, or even less so on the small screen of a mobile device. We know all this, we live it every day. But something that lies out of our reach geographically, or something that we fear because we are not sufficiently familiar with it, or have not yet had the time to deal with it, like the expanse of our National Museum - would it not be wonderful to approach it for the first time at home, in our office or even in the school classroom?
This is an example of what we mean by an open and accessible Museum.
In the halls of our Museum you will meet marbled, sculpted, painted, and well-fashioned people, alongside the multitude of objects that they used when they were alive. In their faces you will see strength and weakness, joy and sorrow, pride or pity, greatness of soul or dark and magical notions. Do these remind you of anything? Of course, we are just the same today. But know that they, too, are watching us with curiosity and intensity. And they expect us to behave accordingly, to sympathize or share the situation they are in. Beyond the theories and opinions of "experts" and "sages" who try to interpret scientific phenomena, the rest of us must feel that everything around us beckons us and tries to tell us something. This is a sure way to fill our visit with emotion, admiration and even irony for their vanity as well as our own.
Inevitably, this happens to most of the visitors who are with us in the museum. Go ahead and show with a smile or a penetrating look that you are with them, but avoid chatter or flirting. Remember that between you and what is on display are those brilliant minds that first conceived of them, those invisible hands that made them, and even those that sought them out or loved them. After all, they are the ones who found them, preserved them over the centuries and set them before you today.
We should absorb all this and take this osmosis with us when we leave, because it will be our own acquisition and not something we read in some expert’s caption. And this same psychodynamic should also dominate our critique of what we have seen and our communication with our fellow human beings. Mutual respect is not imposed but earned. If you achieve this, well done for visiting us, and we're proud of you!
Our Digital Services, in such a large, representative and emblematic Museum, are a true revolution in the way we communicate with you. It is also an important challenge for us, but one that we boldly dare to take on. Not everything is perfect yet, and we don't know if we'll ever be able to say we've done it perfectly. What we promise is that over time, these services will be refined, enriched and strengthened. It is a gamble that involves all the forces of our Museum. And every success you give us will make us that much stronger. Help us and convince us that our audacity has paid off.
This effort does not stem from the conventional understandings of the times about the importance of technology in our lives, nor is it done for reasons of sensationalism. You will find that behind our actions, it is always you, our hitherto unknown "customers", who we want to become our fellow travelers on an exciting, lifelong journey towards the universal values we serve. It is not enough for us simply to recount the lives of our great ancient ancestors. We want to experience it with you, wherever you come from and wherever your Ithaca may be.
In the, hopefully rare, case where a user with an account abuses our services in a manner documented by our staff or other users, after a relevant notification, we reserve the right to delete the account from our infrastructure.
Project of SPACE HELLAS & RADIANT S.A.
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