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The main objective of this article is to reflect upon the integration of digital media in museums by analysing how the digital is imagined and practised in co-design processes at three Danish art museums. With conceptual reference to Flichy’s ‘imaginaire’, we analyse project descriptions written by project participants to obtain funding. The project descriptions represent initial collective visions and reveal imaginations about the capabilities of digital technology. We find that two categories of imaginaires are similar across the cases and we analyse ethnographic data to identify challenges of practicing these. Our findings suggest that challenges mostly emerge in co-design activities or when such activities are not prioritised. The article concludes with reflections on the integration of digital media in museums and the paradoxical nature of the collective project vision as both a necessary driver and constrainer of collaborative museum design.

This paper examines the nature of the staff–visitor encounter in relation to the challenges presented in supporting museum visitors with varying competencies in adopting new technologies. In particular, the paper examines the organisation and operation of a museum's front desk, and addresses the highly contingent, interactional accomplishment of loans and dissemination, more specifically the conversation and the interaction between the front desk assistant and the visitors concerning a potential iPod loan. Based on 18 hours of video recordings, the paper focuses on the offering sequence and shows that participants orient to at least two aspects when making/receiving offers of an iPod loan: (1) the acceptance or rejection of the offer and (2) questions of familiarity; e.g. whether or not the iPod can be treated as a known item. These aspects are inherently related, and participants may choose to align with the terms of familiarity while disaligning with the offer, and vice versa. The study shows that museu...