Dynamic QR codes for museums and galleries

One code per label can serve text detail, an audio clip or a translated description — and you can change which one without reprinting the label.

Temporary exhibitions are the reason museums reprint so much. Labels, panels, wall text and floor graphics change every season, and the labels themselves are often the cheapest part of that work.

If the label carries a code and the code carries the destination, the label can stay mounted across exhibitions: the story changes behind it. That is the difference between printing per exhibition and printing once per gallery.

A label can hold a title and a date. Everything else the curator wants to say, the audio recording, the detail photographs, the letters, the conservation notes, fits behind the code with no limit on length.

Recordings and films have to be hosted somewhere the museum controls, which is the right arrangement: the code points at the museum's own page, and that page can change its media without the labels being touched.

Codes are unusually good for accessibility, because the same label can serve the standard text, the large-print version, the transcript at a comfortable size, and a sign-language recording, all selected by a rule the visitor does not have to think about.

Placement matters as much as content. A label mounted at standing eye level is out of reach from a wheelchair; mounting codes between roughly 110 cm and 140 cm keeps them usable from a seated position and from standing.

A code at each gallery entrance can serve the map, the day's tour times and the temporary exhibition's schedule, and its scan count says something about how many people found that room at all.

Comparing galleries is where the numbers get interesting: an object the curators consider central, next to one they consider minor, is a useful thing to check against how often the label behind each one is scanned.