It is clear that we are witnessing a time of tremendous change and
opportunity. While governments around the world are preparing for
economic, social, and political changes spurred by new information
technologies, those of us in the cultural arena cannot afford to sit in
ivory towers and simply let events overtake us. While mounting more and
more stand alone Web sites is a fundamental step into the cyberspace
universe, it is just the beginning. In reality, cyberspace itself is
currently raucous and untamed territory. Digital information alone is only
a stream of millions of bits. It makes no sense if we have no way of
knowing where to look for information or if different formats for recording
text and images prevent us from access across Web sites. The great
collective repository of our cultural heritage scattered around the world
in libraries, museums, and archives contains vast numbers of art objects
and literary works from the past and present. These are fragments of the
great mosaic of human civilization. To make sure these pieces can be
accessed across collections in ways that benefit our understanding of
humankind and improve our quality of life, we need work together as collaborators in developing community and multi-institutional Web sites locally, nationally, and
globally. Fortunately, a handful of models are leading the
way.
Museums are collaborating with schools, both individually and
collectively,
to exploit museum resources. Meanwhile, schools are enriching K-12
education by constructing virtual museums as part of their educational
experience.
Chair: Bill Kirby, Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art, Canada
Jamieson McKenzie, Director of Libraries, Media and Technology,
Bellingham, Washington, Public Schools; Editor, From Now On - The
Educational Technology Journal, USA
Virtual museums provide an excellent opportunity for museums to partner
with schools. Learn how the Bellingham (WA) public schools, a national
leader in the development of school Web sites, recognized the potential of
a partnership with the Whatcom County Museum of History and Art to develop
a virtual museum devoted to local history at the turn of the 19th Century.
This paper will describe the strategies needed to cultivate such
relationships in terms which museum educators will find valuable as they
weigh the opportunities in their own communities.
How do teachers use materials from Web sites in their classrooms? How can
an art-oriented Web site influence the way teachers teach? Since its debut
on the World Wide Web in September 1995, ArtsEdNet, the Web site of the
Getty Education Institute for the Arts, has provided an array of art
education resources: art images, lesson plans, curriculum ideas, articles,
excerpts and other references, as well as opportunities for educators to
interact with colleagues via an online community. The Getty Education
Institute has utilized a variety of means to gather information about
ArtsEdNet's audience: online feedback forms, user surveys, visitor logs,
telephone interviews, and focus groups. The aim has been to identify which
ArtsEdNet resources educators do find valuable and which they do not and
why. Additionally, we have attempted to determine whether and how educators
use these resources in their classrooms.
Laura Lewis, Education Coordinator, At Home in the Heartland Online,
USA
How do museums and schools form a partnership via the World Wide Web? What
can such a partnership look like and how can one make sure that all parties
-- the museum, teacher and students -- benefit from the experience. The
education coordinator for the Illinois State Museum project "At Home in
the Heartland Online," worked in tandem with the curator of decorative
arts, a computer specialist, and classroom teachers to create an online
exhibit with an educational objective as a balancing act between three
different learning environments -- the Web, the exhibit and the classroom.
This paper will explore the main components of each learning environment
and answer the question: In what ways are these learning environments
different yet similar?
James Devine, Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, UK
Finding the Muse: Lessons from Partnering with University
Students to Build a Museum Educational Site
The idea of linking up with computing science students on the lookout for
projects is not in itself exclusive to the Hunterian. However,
an undergraduate operating independently, with limited resources is not likely to be able to produce a product of sufficiently high quality to meet the requirements of most museums. (We all know what most student home pages look like!) The Hunterian Museum in Glasgow has developed a close cooperation with the honors program course coordinators in the Department of Computing Science. Students receive full academic recognition for their team efforts in developing the Museum's site as the Department of Computing Science ensure that the tasks given are sufficiently technically difficult to meet the curricular demands of the honors program. They appreciate having a "real world" client for the students, and the success of the collaboration has meant we always receive the very best students for the projects. This doesn't come without a museum contribution, however. Museum curators must make time available and allow access to collections for the students. The students also need a lot of direction and supervision in order to ensure the final product meets museum requirements for design and corporate image, and is
effective for the educational end user.
Session 3: The Immense Potential of Museum Web Sites for Research
The ever expanding Web has opened up immense new potential for research and
for the exchange of information and ideas at all levels. A few museums
have begun to make in-depth material available with opportunity for
feedback from the public and scholars alike. Academics and curators report
on Web sites in their disciplines and discuss their visions for the future
of the Web.
In discussing the most advanced Web sites in different subject matter
areas, we intend to focus not just on what is currently possible but
especially on what is desirable for future research. Given the rapid
development of computer technology, we hope this will be seen not only as
visionary but also as eminently practical. The dynamic character of the
Internet has encouraged us to rethink the nature of research and the
essential role of museums in facilitating it. There is a widespread
misconception that research is the preserve of an academic and professional
elite, with needs too specialized and too remote from the public to deserve
the major space they would require on the Web sites of public institutions.
This is a tragic misunderstanding that fails to recognize the thousands of
students in colleges and graduate schools preparing reports and term papers
and advanced students writing graduate theses on every conceivable
subjects, for which museums often hold the essential evidence.
It also underestimates the serious interest and frequent
specialized expertise of the public. Especially at the frontiers of
knowledge, disregard of the potential of museum Web sites for in-depth
research overlooks the central role of museums not only in the distribution
but the creation of content. Pioneering attempts to provide for these
needs in different
disciplines will be presented.
H. Thomas Hickerson, Director, Division of Rare & Manuscript
Collections, Cornell University, USA
At Cornell University, Web-accessible research sources based on museum,
library, archives, and laboratory holdings illustrate the potential for
integrating various materials and employing differing approaches to access.
These Web-based "collections" form a testbed for critical review of the
goals, implementation, and results of such efforts. Particular attention
will be given to concepts underlying the aggregation of digital
"collections" and the collaborative, curatorial, staffing, and audience/use
implications of such developments. In conclusion, the design of new
projects will be examined, including Cornell's botanical garden and
university museum.
John W. Hoopes, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and
Associate Curator, Museum of Anthropology, University of Kansas, USA
In the final scene of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", a crate containing the
object of Indiana Jones' quest is wheeled into an immense warehouse for
indefinite storage and questionable research access. Unfortunately, this
fate is not all that far from reality. Collections of archaeological and
ethnographic materials ranging from stone axes, broken potsherds, and
carved monuments to baskets, ceremonial masks, and skin canoes have been
held by museums collections since the Renaissance. However, their
inestimable value and unique conservation and curatorial requirements often
conspire to remove them from the reach of all but the most diligent
scholars. The potential of the Web to enhance the quality of research on
archaeological and ethnographic collections is enormous. This paper will
examine ways that one can use the Web to enhance research and improve
access to a variety of materials. It will also explore the potential of
the Web for innovative research strategies.
Digitization
of catalogs, associated documents, and images to help one locate and study
collections and specific artifacts are just one approach. Others include
the connection of devices to the Web, such as cameras and microscopes, the
creation of virtual reference collections, and the establishment of
research networks that will enhance the identification and analysis of
material culture. This paper will also consider the role the Web will play
in issues of cultural property, contributing to and in many ways
intensifying ongoing debates of ownership, curation, conservation, and
repatriation of sensitive materials.
Maria Daniels, Visual Collections Curator, Perseus Project, Tufts
University, USA
The advent of scholarly resources on the Web already allows more people to
research a greater number of topics in more depth than ever before.
Increased access will bring about sophisticated understanding and questions
from people previously excluded from the dialogues of professional
scholarship. Because of the larger audience for scholarship, the Web will
likely foster the skeptical evaluation of scholars' claims, the
articulation of new questions, and a growing need for clarification through
research. Thus, the playing field for academic scholarship will be leveled
somewhat, but more generally raised. Experts will be called upon even more
for their specialized knowledge and interpretive skills. In this
environment, what sorts of online tools will humanists, including museum
curators and art historians, need? For the groundwork of research, the
utility of a digital library like the
Perseus Project is obvious.
Computers simplify tedious tasks, such as compiling indices; resolve
disparities, like variant names or spellings; and connect resources,
including objects in different museums. A review of Perseus resources which
facilitate scholarship also shows its current boundaries as a scholarly
tool, however. By examining these limitations, we might generate a
wish-list of Web resources which will provide scholars with the means for
advanced research by allowing them to exploit the advantages of networked
information.
Robert Guralnick, Systems and Network Administrator, University of
California Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Although the intent of media as a tool to educate the public is sometimes
realized, just as often mass media is driven more by market forces than by
accurate presentation of information. Recently, NBC broadcast "Mysterious
Origins," narrated by Charleton Heston, which blatantly presented false
information regarding evolution and human origins. The show was recently
rebroadcast, because controversy is more important than accuracy when it
comes to moneymaking. New media like the Internet promise to be driven
less by commercial interests and have many advantages over television,
radio or newspaper. One of the greatest potentials of the Internet, still
mostly unfulfilled, is to bridge the gap between research and education in
the sciences. Currently, research is disseminated broadly in only a few
major journals like Science and Nature. Most research is of special
interest only to other researchers. Although the Internet can provide a
means to allow communication between
researchers, more importantly it can allow access to and contextualization of
material in a broader context. If research is properly handled on the
Internet, I believe that institutions can make their products more
valuable to society.
I will discuss the notion of hierarchy of information in a laterally
directed medium like the Web and present examples of bridging the gap
between research and education taken from my work on the
University of California Museum of
Paleontology Web site.
Charles Rhyne, Professor, Art History, Reed College, USA
Images as Evidence in Art History and Related Disciplines
Over the past year, a few museums have begun to make available on their
Web sites the types of in-depth material necessary for research in art
history and related disciplines. Most significant has been the provision
of images of entire collections, including thousands of works for which no
photographs were previously available even in the files of the museums.
Yet, understandably, most of these images have been put on at low
resolutions that are useful for little more than identification. Details
cannot be seen or visual effects perceived, much less inscriptions read or
brush strokes distinguished, and the relation of the digital image to the
original object is rarely specified. The fact that digital projects can be
prohibitively expensive, the need for expanded band-width and massive
storage, and the still unresolved questions regarding copyright and fair
use do not alter the fact that for research in art history and related
disciplines, scholars, teachers and students
must be able to explore images in detail and with confidence in the types of
the evidence they provide and those they don't. As a demonstration of what
is needed for research in disciplines that depend on images as evidence, I
will show examples of digital image assignments tested over the past two
years in art history classes at Reed College. The attempt has been to make
available to students digital images that can be studied in a process of
in-depth exploration parallel to that of art historians when conducting
first-hand research on works of art.
Session 4: Architectures for Online Museums of the Future
The World Wide Web, hypertext transfer protocol (http), and hypertext
markup language (HTML) are the beginning, not the end, of technology
developments that will transform museums of the future. Work is underway on
numerous fronts to develop new architectures that support the requirements
of online museums.
Dynamic Generation of Museum Web Pages: The Intelligent
Labelling Explorer [ed. note: paper URL invalid - ftp://ftp.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/pub/janet/museums-and-web.ps.gz - Sept. 10,2006
The first phase of the Intelligent Labelling Explorer project has built
the ILEX-1 system, which uses Natural Language technology to generate
descriptions of objects displayed in a museum gallery. Each description
appears on a Web page, and the user can move from page to page, viewing the
objects in any order, mimicking the experience of someone walking through
the museum. Crucially, these descriptions aren't simply retrieved from a
storage space, but are generated on demand by combining canned text with
fully generated text in a coherent way. This use of "dynamic hypertext"
allows ILEX-1 to generate descriptions appropriate to the expertise level
of the user and, for instance, to refer back to objects the user has
already seen or to suggest objects the user might be interested in based on
what objects they've chosen to look at so far. For example, ILEX-1 can
refer to previously seen objects as in "Like the brooch you just saw, these
earrings were designed by Jesse M. King or
"Other jewels in the Bohemian style include a necklace designed for
Liberty & Co. and a ring made out of glass." To date, two versions have
been implemented (ILEX-0 and ILEX-1); both describe objects in the National
Museums of Scotland's 20th Century Jewelry Gallery. One of the central
concerns of ILEX-1 is to ensure that the descriptions generated are
coherent, and this paper will describe the module for choosing the
appropriate noun phrase to use at a particular place in the text. This
module takes into account the user's familiarity with the objects described
based on expertise level and user history, and must take into account
linguistic information such as the structure of the text.
The AQUARELLE project will connect museum specialists across Europe to
enable access to a variety of databases with cultural contents, such as
collection management systems and image and text bases. Beyond that, a
so-called Folder Server will support scholars, administrators and
conservators to exploit this materials providing: a tool to maintain
secondary SGML documents, that describe, comment and reference the primary
material across the European borders through the Internet. The technical
challenge of this undertaking is to cater for the diversity in
specialization, organizational and cultural context, data validity and the
adequate high precision in reference and retrieval. On the other side, the
organization of agreement on shared contents and resources all levels poses
as well interesting questions. The project so far provides first solutions
and serves as a forum to obtain valid requirements for future systems.
John Eyre, Senior Project Manager, International Institute for
Electronic Library Research, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
The Electronic Library Image Service for Europe project is now in its
second phase. The pilot project which ran from Feb. 93 to Jan. 95 looked
at the feasibility of providing museum and library images and related text
to users based across Europe via the Internet. Working with partners like
IBM, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Tilburg University, we produced
working prototype applications for MS Windows and X-Windows before the
emergence of the Web and associated browsers. ELISE II has been funded for
the next three years (from Oct. 96) and now has nine partners, bringing new
material in a variety of subject areas, including scientific imaging. With
the explosion in the use of the Web and browsers like Netscape, it is
obvious that for wide access applications delivering data over the
Internet, this environment is essential for developers to use. ELISE II
will develop a system that will manage the whole process of providing an
image service, including User Validation, User
Profiles, Standard
Metadata Models such as the Dublin Core, Thesauri Expansion, Searching
by Image Content, Searching across Disparate Databases, Distributed Images,
support for Multimedia Objects including Streaming Video and Audio,
Copyright Requirements and Management of various Payment Schemes. This
paper outlines the project requirements and suggests some of the ideas and
system designs which we believe will fulfill these requirements.
Session 5: Museum Application of the Web: Experiences
Creative applications of the Web can enhance museum programming, attract
new audiences, develop stronger relations with customers, and enable
museums professionals to make multiple uses of their intellectual content
and efforts. But these require good ideas and careful planning and
execution. Some creative applications report on their experiences.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Web site is piloting a section called
"You're the Expert," that presents each month a real-case scenario that
invites visitors to play the role of a museum expert. One month visitors
may have to decide the most effective way to light a piece of sculpture,
another month they have to create an inviting title for an upcoming
exhibition, write a label for a new acquisition, or select an appropriate
period frame for a painting. The intent of this section is multifarious
addressing the needs and interests of both the visitor and the museum.
Visitors get a behind-the-scenes look at different museum professions, an
opportunity to learn something about the art, and a chance to talk to us
and each other about what they've discovered. The museum, on the other
hand, has an on-going focus group that helps us "eavesdrop" on what general
audiences find most interesting; e.g., what exhibition titles attract them
or what information they want in a label. This
information can then be used to improve our marketing strategies and
educational offerings. This paper will explore these other models and
suggest ways for museums to better exploit this new technology. Such
models will help museum's expand their web site traffic beyond the current
tourist and teacher audiences to include the traditional non-museum visitor
who might just discover that there's something for them at their local
museum after all.
Producing a computer-based multimedia museum exhibit involves a unique set
of problems in the design of a software system to satisfy the needs of a
wide range of visitors and researchers. When it comes to moving the exhibit
onto the Internet, new problems and issues arise. The paper introduces TAMH
(Tayside: A Maritime History), a PC-based multimedia project exploring some
issues involved in allowing users to ask the questions which interest them
in the way they find most appropriate. The process discussed is that of
moving the TAMH system from its original standalone or locally networked
form to a Web-based virtual museum site, allowing universal access to a
multimedia database archive, and novel methods of searching the archive.
The standalone TAMH system uses interactive maps and visual criteria
selection to search the database, as well as more traditional field
searching methods, allowing a whole spectrum of users to traverse the
database and discover facts and connections.
The original design concept was to move away from rigid hypertext-like
links. Emulating this flexibility in the on-line version involves careful
design of the Web-based system. Indeed, the fact that the underlying st
ructure is a database will be of interest to only a small proportion of
users. To the rest, to maintain their interest, this fact needs to be
disguised. In addition, the Internet environment provides new facilities
which can be used in the evolution of the exhibit, and a perfect medium for
collecting feedback on system and content design from a large body of
visitors.
Suzette Worden, Director, CTI Art and Design, Faculty of Art, Design
& Humanities, University of Brighton, UK
Thinking Critically about Virtual Museums [ed. note: Paper URL invalid - http://www.adh.bton.ac.uk/ctiad/saw/conf/TITLE.HTM - Sept. 10 2006]
Within the context of higher education students are able to gain access to
a growing archive information for their studies in art and design history
and practice. However, the educational aim in using these digital resources
is to encourage a ' critical' understanding of data and its context. The
aim of this paper will be to look at online and associated stand-alone
projects that encourage students to be curators and authors with critical
distance, rather than passive observers of endless digital spectacle. There
is also a theoretical dimension to such a task. I will therefore refer to
the ways in which critical theory has been used to influence and shape the
development of software in a project called the Virtual Curator at the
University of Brighton, (UK); ways in which an understanding of the
transient nature of the digital image is crucial for an understanding of
the virtual museum; and, most importantly, how giving power to the user as
the creator of an archive, also re-interprets the concept of the museum itself.
Judith Gradwohl, Director, Smithsonian Without Walls, Smithsonian Institution, USA
Revealing Things: An Experiment in Museum Web
Sites
Revealing Things, under development at the Smithsonian Institution,
is a project to experiment with and learn about the Web as a museum-based
communications medium. Created solely as a Web site, Revealing
Things will combine object-based learning with new technologies the
Web. The ultimate goal of the project is to experiment with and learn
about the World Wide Web as a museum-based communication medium. Users will
be active participants in determining the content and nature of their
experience in Revealing Things. At the most fundamental level,
users will be the designers of their personal exhibits as they decide how
to navigate through the material and participate in mission-oriented use of
the site. Revealing Things will also offer opportunities for users
to leave their mark on the program, contributing objects and stories to the
presentation. Most important, material in Revealing Things will
change constantly. The choice of topics and themes
will change often and unpredictably. Assembling data on the fly will
allow many pages in the Web site to personalize the information. Users
will interact with the program and provide information that will change the
experience for themselves and others.
Session 6: Museum Application of the Web: Implications
When museums make use of the Web as a means of extending their program, the
results can transform their institutions and their mission. Several
applications which are driving museums to such reformulations of their
roles are explored.
Using the Web to create a unique museum experience. Robert Futernick, Chief
Conservator at the Achenbach Foundation of the Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco, created an art imagebase of more than 60,000 digital
reproductions of works from the collection. Initially developed as a
collection management project, the searchable database is now available on
the museum's Web site, "The Thinker". Through the website, visitors and
scholars are encouraged to become their own curator by following their own
interests through the collection, or by setting up appointments to view
specific works.
Junji Matsuzaki, Senior Vice President, NHK Engineering Services, Inc., Japan
Many Japanese museums have installed High Definition Television (HDTV) systems and have been exploring ways to re-create a museum environment using digital technology. The HDTV display and digital image and data storage system which includes 3D HDTV provides various new features to museums. By re-creating a museum environment with HDTV technology, the visitor is introduced to a new experience in art immersion.
This talk will discuss an exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design
Museum, Smithsonian Institution, exploring recent trends in graphic imagery
(through Feb 17, 1997). The website accompanying the exhibition includes a
compendium of 18 home pages chosen from various illustrators and designers
as well as a series of highly interactive areas where viewers are invited
to send "Webograms", design their own corporate logos, or post a message in
the "Fog" room. Web designer Elisabeth Roxby and curator Ellen Lupton
discuss the potential of web design as an emerging artform and the process
of "virtual collecting".
The museum is a perspicuous site for analyzing the complex interplay
between social, organizational, cultural, and political factors which have
relevance to the design and use of "virtual" technology. Specifically, the
introduction of virtual technologies in museums runs up against the issue
of the situated character of information use. Across a number of
disciplines (anthropology, sociology, psychology, cognitive science) there
is growing recognition of the `situatedness' of knowledge and its
importance for the design and use of technology. This awareness is fostered
by the fact that technological developments are often associated with
disappointing gains for users. The effective use of technology relies on
the degree to which it can be embedded in or made congruent with the
`local' practices of people who are working with it. This paper argues that
the value of virtual technologies in museums depends upon the extent to
which the design of such technologies takes account of t!
he ordinary practices of museum users. Drawing upon field research in two
museums of science and technology, both of which are in the process of
introducing virtual technologies and exploring the possibilities of on-line
access, findings are presented which suggest that the success of such
developments will depend on the extent to which they are informed by
detailed understanding of practice, both among museum visitors and
curatorial and educational professionals.
Taking users seriously, and learning from them what they are interested in,
what they need to know, and how they can best experience it, leads to
design decisions that are not always self-evident. Designers who have
conducted studies of different user communities suggest concrete ways to
reach users through sensitive interface and design choices.
Chair: J. Trant, Archives & Museum Informatics, USA
Slavoljub Milekic, School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire
College, USA
hamp.hampshire.edu/~smCCS/kiddyface.htm [ed. note: link invalid, Sept. 10, 2006]
Technological breakthroughs in the domain of computers and the increasing
use of the Internet had a major impact on availability and dissemination of
information. However, one large section of the general population has been
hardly affected by this revolution. Currently there are no established
means by which young children, ages 2-5 can access the relevant parts of
this vast collection. The major problem is the lack of a child-friendly
interface environment which would allow children to interact in a
meaningful way with a digitally presented information. Although the
problem was commonly recognized during the past decade it was not
considered acute until the recent explosion of information availability.
Using the model of an existing child-friendly interface environment
(KiddyFace, Milekic 1996), I argue in this paper for the necessity of
creation of a specific milieu which will make the information accessible in
an age appropriate manner.
Noni Korf Vidal, Digital Projects Archivist, Rare & Manuscript
Collections, Cornell University, USA
User-Centered System Design [ed. note: paper URL invaid - http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/nk11/works/in/progress/talk.html - Sept. 10, 2006]
The Utopia Project was conceived as a means to test the ability of a
unified, digitized database to reshape teaching and research and to
encourage interdisciplinary and cross cultural approaches to learning. From
the beginning, it was felt that a "Build it, they will come" approach would
not meet these ambitious needs. For the project to succeed, there needed
to be active involvement of faculty in the design and use of Utopia. The
author will detail the involvement of faculty in the design of the Utopia
project, the changes that have been made or are anticipated in response to
their requests, and how the faculty have then tried to incorporate Utopia
into courses at Cornell. Faculty involvement is only part of the process of
developing a user-centered system design, however. Input from students is
also needed. This fall the Utopia database was incorporated into a large
general undergraduate survey course. This paper will present as well the
findings of a recent survey of students
in the course and discuss the implications of the results of the
survey for Web-based cultural heritage projects that hope to appeal to
undergraduates.
Lin Hsin Hsin, Artist, Information
Technologist, Poet, Singapore
In real life, an art museum landscapes around a building design concept
with a defined exterior and adjustable interior spaces with a permanent
collection and curated exhibitions. Implementing an art museum on the Web
can either simulate or represent its real world environment or it can be
completely built upon a virtual space. Currently, with exceptions, many
real world art museums are represented by a 2D design concept filled with
icons and its associated links together with snippets of collections. The
prime objective of such a digital brochure is simply offering a vehicle to
inform visitors of its physical presence. Using current available
technological tools, this paper distinguishes the difference between the
Web representation of a real world museum and a Web museum. Based on the
author's extensive Web site visualization, design and implementation
experiences, this paper examines and presents an art museum design
philosophy and concepts. It details design elements in appropriating
and apportioning multimedia contents (e.g. exhibits, art critic
essays) selection in the extent of text annotation, image size, quality
and quantity as well as the inclusion of audio sound bytes, music and video
clips. As such, it suggests and offers the determinants for the basis and
demand of creating animation (e.g. Gif89a, Shockwaves, JavaScript, Java
Applets) for both 3D and 2D Web Sites. As it offers an array of a Web Page
layout format, it offers an insight into the Site's navigational psychology
and pattern with strong emphasis on aesthetics interests, Site ambiance
versus systems performance considerations. It provides and reviews the
choice of Site architecture with or without business transaction-oriented
capabilities and problems concerning security issues and measures. Beyond
which, it offers tools and methodologies for links validation and Site
implementation guide. Ultimately, this paper is concerned with the ways to
build a Web Site that excites -- one
that is content rich and punctuated with fun elements with the possibility
of setting up an art museum Intranet with archiving, inventory control and
visitor profile databases.
Mikael Fernstrom, Hunt Museum, and Liam Bannon, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Ireland
The authors report on tests with the Hunt Museum Web site to discover how
structure and content affect the use of the site. Two approaches are being
employed: monitoring the hits per page in the structure, and gathering
comments from users. The site is undergoing a revamping as the museum is
about to re-open in a new locality. In conjunction with the redesign, the
staff has been working with the National Museum of Ireland and interviewing
and interacting with curators, architects, multimedia designers, and other
professionals to conceptualize the requirements and specifications for the
new expansion in Collins Barracks in Dublin (which is one of the major
European museum developments).
The Exhibit Hall opens with a cash bar, complementary hors d'oevres
sponsored by the exhibitors, and an opportunity to see the commercial
exhibits. Displays will feature computing consultants, software developers, educational publishers, image distributors, museum consortia, Web site designers, and not-for-profit organizations showing their own developments in a shared booth. The Exhibit Hall will be open all day
Tuesday, March 18.
