Conference Sessions
Museums and the Web: An International Conference
Los Angeles, CA, March 16 - 19,
1997
Birds of a Feather Breakfasts
Types of Institutions and/or Departments
Continental breakfasts provide an opportunity for unstructured discussion. Participants can
share information on common interests.
- Cultural History Museums, Historic Buildings, Performance
Museums
- Galleries, Libraries and Imagebases
- Schools and K-12
Museum Educators
- Science Centers, Natural History
Museums, Observatories, Zoos and Aquaria
Tuesday, March 18, 9:30 am - 5:00 pm
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.
Session 8: Managing Mature Web
Sites
As your site grows and becomes an increasingly significant part of the museum
communications program, challenges arise in its maintenance that are quite different from those
confronted in the initial wave of enthusiastic content creation. In this session managers of large
mature sites discuss strategies they employ stay timely, relevant and deep.
Chair: Cary Karp, Director of Information Technology,
Swedish Museum of Natural History, Sweden
Nancy Lutz, Assistant Director, Cass Fey, Curator of Education, and Lauren Smith, Writer/Educator, Center for Creative Photography,
University of Arizona, USA
- Center for Creative Photography
Channels a Wave of Success through the Web
- www.ccp.arizona.edu/ccp.ht ml
- The Center
for Creative Photography, a renowned photography museum and research center at the University of
Arizona, joined the growing group of museums expanding outreach efforts through a presence on the
Web more than two years ago to provide general, exhibition, collection and programming information.
However, it was the development of the education component - the educator's resource - that has
resulted in a wave of response. Feedback from this component of the site has substantiated that
this outreach tool can lead to new, highly motivated and involved audiences. The paper will be
presented jointly by three staff members who represent critical components in the decision-making
process when institutions approach the creation of new information technologies to accomplish
ongoing goals. Nancy Lutz, Assistant Director, Cass Fey, Curator of Education, and Lauren Smith,
writer/educator docent, will discuss the institutional events that precipitated the education
department's move to the Web and explore the reallocation of institutional resources, personnel and
fiscal resources, that are an integral part of this decision.
Stephen Alsford, Special Projects Officer, Canadian
Museum of Civilization, Canada
- From Pilot to Program:
Organizing Content Creation as a Web Site Grows
- www.cmcc.muse.digital.ca/cmc/cmceng/welcmeng.html
- The Canadian Museum of Civilization Web site began, as most museum Web sites do, as a
small-scale experiment to learn more about operating in cyberspace. A single individual (the
author) was tasked with creating a pilot Web site. After a few months, ambitions outpaced the scope
of a pilot project and it became necessary to find ways to involve managers and staff in the
various areas of the museum more closely with the development of the site. This paper will identify
the reasons behind creating CMC's Web site and the goals set for the site, and will outline the
development of the site, paying attention particularly to the organization of content creation and
quality control mechanisms. It will examine alternative approaches to content creation, including
in-house and external production, and will consider desirable qualifications of content creators in
a museum context. Consideration will also be given to where, in an organization, responsibility for
a Web site should fall, as well as to broader issues of cultural change within an institution. The
paper will focus on the experience of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, but will not pretend to
have general solutions to the issues, many of which continue to be problematic at this time -- for
reasons which will be addressed.
Markus Schranz, Researcher, Information Systems
Institute, Technical University of Vienna, Austria
- Vienna International Festival/Wiener
Festwochen (1996): Managing Culture on the Web
- www.festwochen.or.at/WF
- Managing and
maintaining a Web presence becomes non-trivial when the size of the service exceeds a certain
limit. Keeping the data organization, the information mapping to Web pages, and the navigation
design manageable, while providing a consistent interface in terms of layout and usability, are
basic requirements to Web presence. Currently the tools for managing and maintaining Web presence
are limited as most page editors work on small sets of pages. During the work on the Vienna
International Festival web presence of 300 multilingual pages we soon stepped beyond manageability
with common page editors. We developed a methodology to organize, implement, and maintain a web
presence. The methodology includes scientific design and organization modeling, integration of
static and interactive WWW services, and consistent layout management using editable WWW interface
templates. An object-oriented language is used to describe data organization, layout templates, and
presence contents in a manageable and maintainable way.
Session 9: Visions of Culture
in Digital Communities: A Panel Discussion
The Los Angeles Culture Net (LACN) is a
community networking initiative providing public access to digitized materials from museums,
libraries, and universities throughout Los Angeles County. These materials are being used to enrich
K-12 curricula, teach others how to build their own Web sites, and engage the cultural community to
address the implications of the emerging information society for distributing cultural
resources.
Chair: David Jensen, Project Manager, LA Culture Net,
Getty Information Institute, USA
- An Overview of the Los Angeles Culture Net (LACN)
Initiative
- www.gii.getty.edu/lacn
Jim Bower, Project Manager, Getty Information Institute,
USA
- "Faces of Los Angeles": The LACN Demonstration Project
Myung Lee, Executive Director, Korean American Museum,
USA
- Challenges and Opportunities for Museums Online
Joseph Loeb, President, Break Away Technologies, USA
- Break Away Technologies and Community Networking
Vickie Steele, Head of Special Collections, Dohney
Library, University of Southern California, USA
- Reaching Out to Local Communities
and Non-Academic Audiences
Technical Briefing Sessions
Focused single-speaker sessions offering in-depth reports on technical developments, research
projects and issues of interest.
Prue Campbell, and Carol A. Christian, Office of Public Outreach, Space Telescope
Science Institute, USA
- Hubble Space Telescope: A Web Resource for
Science Museums and Planetaria
- oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo
- Part of the mission
of the Office of Public Outreach at Space Telescope Science Institute is to disseminate the results
of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to science museums and planetaria. In one of the ways we
achieve this mission, we are using the information transfer abilities of the World Wide Web. We
offer a site from a major research institute specifically designed as a resource to the museum
community.
It is our belief that this is unique: while there are many sites from research
institutes which the science museum community can use, these sites are usually designed for the
general public or for classroom educators. Other sites designed for museum staff use offer
exhibits, but little in the way of easy-to-access information of general interest.
In this
presentation we outline the resources available through our site (which is currently under
construction and will be available in March). This includes HST images, science background
articles, and a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about HST and its astronomy. In addition,
we offer a resource list of exhibits, planetarium programs, classroom activities, etc. about HST.
Also available is an "advanced notice" system, where authorized browsers can see the contents of
press releases before the general public - helping make science centers an authority the public can
turn to when new results are released. Relevant topics include: Museum Exhibitions on the Web;
Consortia, National, and International Projects; Imagebases, Multimedia, and Publishing; and, New
Technologies & Opportunities for the Near Future.
Brenda Matthis, Harvard Graduate School of Education,
USA
- Authorship: The Implications of the Web Designer's
Narrative on Children's Social Construction
- This researcher reviewed software
review publications checked for indicators of character representation by gender and ethnicity, and
cultural assumptions of logic in educational math software for children. These indicators were
chosen as major manifestations of a software designer's narrative in software. The research
supports the theoretical frame that knowing the author is important in selecting software for
social construction and cognitive development; and that only one review publication checked for
these indicators, which were buried in the overall rating. If these indicators of author narrative
exist, they are not identified because the review mechanism does search for these
indicators.
Janice Sorkow, Director of Rights and Licensing, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, USA
- Guidelines for Pricing and Image Licensing for Web-Based
Publications
- Museums have dealt with the publication of images of their objects in
print publications for nearly a century, by using fairly clear cut policies, regulations, and
prices. The use of digital images of Museum objects on the Web in the past few years, has taken
the museum business by complete surprise. This paper will examine the issues museums must consider
when providing images and permissions for Web-based publications. It will also propose practical
guidelines for image licensing in this medium. Definitions of types of Web publications, strategies
for pricing based on models from the commercial world, methods for order fulfillment, and contract
terms will be outlined. Also included will be a discussion about licensing images for the Web
differs from CD licensing, as well as an analysis of the present and future administrative,
financial, and mission-based implications that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is facing as an
image provider.
Lydia Johnson, Acting Director, Museums and Galleries at
Southern Utah University, USA
- Offering Distance Education on the Web: How
a University Gallery Uses the Web to Teach Art Appreciation
- www/sii/edi/WebPages/MuseumGaller/lydia.html
Session 10: Standards for Museum
Data into the Future
Many of the issues facing a maturing Web world now, like providing
access to huge quantities of information, distributed search and retrieval, and enhanced
functionality, have solutions based on previous standards work such as Z39.50, SGML, and image
interchange. Standards that will have a critical impact on Web development, functionality, and
usability are highlighted.
Chair: John Perkins, Executive Director, Consortium for
Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI), Canada
- www.cimi.org
Clifford Lynch, Director of Library Automation, Office
of the President, University of California, USA
- Dublin Core and Warwick Framework
Metadata for the Description and Location of Networked Information Objects
Michael Vulpe, President, Infrastructures for
Information, Canada
- SGML: Show Me Which Road I'm
On
- www.i4i.org
- The promise of SGML is that if you separate form from content a miracle occurs. Data integrity
is preserved across platforms, applications, and soup recipes. The reality is a return to the bad
old days of proprietary hardwired solutions. Appreciating what SGML brings to the table requires an
understanding both of its origins and of its characteristics. SMGL is not what is appears to be at
first glance.
- In this paper, we look at:
- where SGML came from
- how a business case ca (or cannot) be made for SGML
- what
alternatives exist today
- attempts to "fix" SGML to make it address today's problesm
- how
SGML can be rescued from obscurity by redevining its role
Session 11: The Concept of the
Museum in a World of Internetworking
What will, might, should the museum be? These
questions engage us as we re-invent the museum for the new environment. Colleagues who are thinking
deeply about such issues share their views.
Chair: Stephen Alsford, Special Projects Officer,
Canadian Museum of Civilization, Canada
Andrea Witcomb, Lecturer, Research Institute for
Cultural Heritage, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
- The End of the Mausoleum: Museums in the Age of Electronic
Communication
- www.curtin.edu.au:80/curtin/dept/rich
- Museums have often been understood in both intellectual and popular circles as mausoleums, as
centers of accumulation of objects which no longer have a living relationship with the present.
This is an image which makes it almost impossible to associate the museum with debates about
contemporary cultural issues. In this paper I want to propose that this is no longer a valid way of
representing the museum, largely because the museum is now deeply implicated in electronic media
flows making it an important site for the newly emerging 'information society'. This new
relationship between electronic technologies and museums has fundamentally questioned the
traditional museum's orientation to objects, an orientation which, I argue, led to the image of
museums as mausoleums in the first place. As a result the metaphors we associate with museums are
beginning to change, away from the idea of the museum as disconnected from the social world towards
the opposite -- the museum as a site of cultural, technological and social convergences. This
involves a re-evaluation of the role of objects in museums as well as that of the curator and
museum's relationships to communities.
Peter Walsh, Director of Information and Institutional
Relations, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, USA
- The Web and the Unassailable Voice
www.wellesley.edu/DavisMuseum/davismenu.html
In most existing art museum web pages, the values of the museum dominate the values of the Web.
Therefore, museum web pages often electronically duplicate familiar museum products-- floor plans,
collection catalogues, event calendars-- rather than transforming the idea of the museum by
adapting the values of the web. This presentation will seek to show how art museums and
technologists can come to understand each other and use their differences productively by:
- Orienting museum web sites towards projects that can only be done on the web and not on
paper.
- Using the web to overcome the many limitations to understanding imposed by the
physical art museum.
- Using the interactive potentials of the web to change the one-way
flow of information from art museum to visitor to a two-way flow which also moves from visitor to
museum.
- Infusing the orientation towards constant change into the art museum so that the
web helps the art museum to reinvent itself.
Apple Computer, Inc. is pleased to sponsor an
evening of innovative technology exploring the latest in Web development work. Artists and
multimedia developers present their projects during a reception on the campus of the American Film
Institute.
Transportation sponsored by Corbis Corporation. Parking
at the AFI is very limited.
Program for Wednesday, March 19, 1997.
Last modified: March
