Alverno College, Skyline Technologies and the Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion Team Up to Bring Mobile Museum App to Milwaukee

March 12, 2013

Skyline Technologies, the Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion and Alverno College are teaming up to create the Milwaukee Mobile Museum app, the first of its kind for this area. The concept for the app grew from a desire to make the vast photo and asset archives at various museums available, and searchable, to the public even when not on display. The new, interactive app will bring various cultural and non-profit organizations together on one platform, allowing users to search and view museum collections and archives, view photos of current museum exhibits and use geo-location features to figure out where a building in an historic photo once stood. Users will also be able to designate favorites, share with friends and seek additional information through participating institutions' websites and social media platforms.

Twice a year Skyline Technologies, a regional software developer, takes on a project for a non-profit. This time they chose to work with the Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion, in part because Jim Pabst, Business Development Manager at Skyline Technologies, is part of the historic brewing family. “This app will bring people to the intersection of history and technology,” said Pabst. “The aim is to make Milwaukee cultural heritage more accessible to residents and visitors.”

While the project began with the Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion, it has grown to include any museum, library, archive or historical society in southeastern Wisconsin that wants to take part. Initially the app will showcase content from the Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion, Lynden Sculpture Garden, Recollection Wisconsin and Alverno College. It will work on mobile devices and tablets, and will be available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

Alverno College will host a developer camp, or DevCamp, on March 16 and 17. The Conference Center will be filled with 35 - 40 programmers, graphic artists and testers, making sure the app runs smoothly on all devices, and working out any bugs along the way. Alverno College students will also be involved, helping upload digital assets from the Pabst Mansion. The free app will be piloted during Wisconsin Museums Week, May 12 - 18, and is set to launch in June. Once launched, Skyline plans to make the app available to other communities that would like to set up a similar mobile museum.