Session 12: Getting and Keeping Audience Attention
Beyond electronic commerce, museums are using the Web to market themselves
and their programs. They will fail if they cannot both gain and retain the
attention of the (worldwide) communities they serve. Learn about the
methods being used by other Webmasters to keep these measures of success in
the forefront of operational concerns.
The ITEM (Image Technology in Museums and art galleries) database has,
since 1990 been compiled and published as a twice yearly hard copy text
only reference work on subscription. In October 1996 ITEM knowledge base
changed to a Web text and image site incorporating extensive search and
other facilities -- on a subscription basis but with free-access sampling.
The process of this transformation, the pitfalls of low (nominal) budget
transfer into leading edge and rapidly evolving technology, the problems
encountered in the acquisition of the image elements for use on WWW, the
compilation and administrative reorganization and the response of existing
and potential subscribers will be discussed. This experience of the ITEM
transformation will used as a basis for considering other museum related
examples of income producing activities on the Web, including reference to
the topic of images and copyright and moral rights - and for open
discussion.
Norman Barth, President, Les Pages de Paris / The Paris Pages, USA
Two years or more ago, just about every Web site was the 'first' at
something or another. The Paris Pages was the first Web site dedicated to
the City of Paris. This included the first online pages about the Louvre,
the Musee d'Orsay, Centre Pompidou, and other museums, and monuments in the
City. It has been celebrated in the international press since 1994. The
ambitions of the site are to provide cultural, documentary, and educational
content. Over the last 30 months, it has grown to 8000+ pages, and 3000+
images, with roughly 6 million accesses per month. It has done near real
time reporting of news and events in Paris since 1995. Since November
1996, there has been a true online Boutique with secure transactions. The
Boutique sells cultural and educational items, such as CD-ROM by the
Reunion des musees nationaux (RMN). The content and technical dimensions of
the server are vast enough that we have been confronted with many issues
not currently discussed in the general
'Internet' press, and have had to find solutions to them. This has
involved creation ofWeb database management tools, HTML creation tools, as
well as tools for managing diverse data types (images, text, addresses,
telephone numbers, geographic location, metro stops, figure captions,
history, current events etc.) in a way conducive to using them in the Web
site. Other issues are related handling the correspondence generated by an
estimated 500,000 unique 'sessions' per month, and finally, copyright, and
financial issues.
The Web site of the Royal Ontario Museum was officially launched on the
16th of January 1996. It has averaged 1,800 site visitors on a daily basis.
Wanting to increase virtual visitor satisfaction and attendance to the Web
site, its developers began to rework the site. Navigation links were
retooled; indexing was reexamined, metadata; was introduced; proposals for
new interactive projects were reviewed and put into production; and
strategic Web marketing became more focused based on our Web site audit
reports. The paper will address:
how to get critical information about how your visitors are using
your site and how you can use that data to improve Web site further.
strategic Web marketing
the best free marketing resources on the internet today
Session 13: Accessing Museum Collections Over the Web
The most obvious is not always the easiest: providing access to museum
collections over the Web can require significant rethinking of our existing
practices to make information available (and meaningful) to the public.
Examine the technical, programmatic, and practical issues involved in
making databases of our holdings accessible.
Jim Blackaby, Senior Systems Developer, Office of Technology
Initiatives, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, USA, and Beth Sandore, Coordinator for Imaging Projects, Digital Library Research
Program, University of Illinois, USA
Ever wish you could put your fingers on all of the information about a
specific topic in a museum, regardless of whether it was drawn from the
objects collection, exhibit catalogues, the library's holdings, or the
prints and slides collection? Or your interest might even extend beyond a
single department. With computerization and public access projects,
museums are increasingly called upon to provide information drawn from a
great deal of heterogeneous material. This paper investigates fundamental
approaches to constructing integrated museum information systems. A key
element in the process of building these systems is the development of a
thorough understanding of the data structures and formats within your
organization. Also critical is the need to determine how data ought to be
stored and shaped, and how a museum would like the data to be displayed,
once it is retrieved. Practical examples are drawn from projects in which
the authors have participated, including the Oregon Historical Society's Collections Access Project, sponsored by the U. S.
Dept. of Education, and the Museum Educational Site Licensing Project,
sponsored by the Getty Information Institute, and The United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. An overview is provided of current Web and
database technology that supports integrated systems development, and
consideration is given to the ways in which these technologies match
existing information access systems.
Kevin Donovan, New Media Applications, Willoughby Associates,
Ltd., USA
Internet technologies, specifically the Web, have captured the imagination
of museum workers. The potential of the Web as a medium for what is usually
referred to as "Public Access" has sparked interest at the highest levels
of museum administration, evidenced in new rounds of investment in museum
automation. Taken at face value, this enthusiasm is welcome and is
certainly informed by the best of intentions. But it does not necessarily
follow that this investment will result in improved intellectual access to
museum holdings or new audiences. The reasons why the best of intentions
are unlikely to yield expected returns include:
current ideas about online Public Access;
the information systems that lie behind Public Access systems; and,
the organizational structure of museums (particularly US museums)
The purpose of this presentation will be to:
examine the good intentions of Public Access;
dissect how Web-based Public Access usually manifests itself;
discuss the information systems that currently feed this approach;
propose a new model for what might constitute Public Access (and
attempt to rename it); and,
discuss the information and organizational systems required for this
new model
The presentation will include illustrations drawn from the Web and mock-ups
of proposed Web-enabled museum educational sites.
Howard Besser, Visiting Associate Professor, School of Information Management & Systems, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Historically, automation for exhibition and for collection management have
developed along very distinct and independent paths, with different sets of
vendors, software, tools, and platforms as well as no possibility of
integration. The Worldwide Web offers the possibility of linking
collection management information to interactive exhibitions, overlaying
the narrative structure of exhibitions onto the item-based rich collection
of information found in collection management systems. This paper shows
what such an integrated system might look like, explains what activities
will be needed to get there, and reviews some existing Web activities that
begin to approach such a future integration.
Session 14: International Collaboration, the Cultural Heritage
Profession, and the Web
The Web has spawned numerous examples of large scale cooperative endeavors
and is becoming a major focus of cultural heritage strategy at both the
national and international level. Examine undertakings and strategies
exploring the larger potential of the Web for collaboration.
Chair: Jane Sledge, Getty Information Institute, USA
Bruce Williams, Director, Information Services Erik Rask, Web Site Manager, and Wendy Thomas, Project Leader, Canadian Heritage Information Network, Canada
The Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) has recently launched two
Web-based products -- the Guide to Canadian Museums and Galleries, and the
Heritage Forum. This paper will examine the issues in developing these
products, the challenges that have been met and that remain, and ways in
which individual institutions might apply the CHIN experience to their own
situations. Issues and challenges include:
creating partnerships, analysis of partners' resources and
capabilities
establishing mechanisms for efficient and effective online data
contribution - including authentication of data through the use of user
IDs and passwords
analysis of audience needs
highlighting contributors
proving benefits and demonstrating success through mechanisms for
tracking site visits and feedback
encouraging commitment and ongoing contributions
promoting the products within the organizations and to the larger
community
minimizing costs through the creation of resources that can be
re-packaged and re-used
Jonathan Bowen, Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, Reading
University, UK
The Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp) were started as a personal project
in 1994, forming part of the Virtual Library distributed information
repository initiated by the original inventors of the World Wide Web. The
VLmp resource provides a leading directory of online museums and associated
resources which has grown exponentially in size and use since its
inception. In 1996 the directory was adopted by the International Council
of Museums (ICOM), helping to ensure its long-term future. This
presentation will provide a brief history of the development and use of
VLmp, and consider its possible future directions.
Jean-Louis Pascon, Technology Coordinator, Ministère de la culture,
France
The emphasis given to information acquisition and dissemination for
cultural organizations is clearly reflected in some recent important public
statements, including that of the June 1991 document adopted by 34
governments issued by the Conference of Security and Co-operation in Europe
(CSCE). Greater emphasis was given to this subject at the last meeting of
the G7 nations in Brussels, where it was specified that "culture is a key
dimension of the Information Society." In most European countries,
long-term efforts have been undertaken to preserve, describe and index
cultural heritage. More recently, many public authorities and private
entities have begun digitizing important parts of this heritage. Over the
past several years, public sector cultural organizations have put a greater
emphasis on knowledge dissemination to different types of user communities
- both domestic and foreign. As a consequence, increased importance has
been directed to satisfying the needs of different user
"publics." Such efforts are leading to the development of market
segmentation -- involving distinguishing different user subgroups, where
each is characterized by an homogenous set of needs. This approach results
in the development of different types of services to address the needs of
different targeted user populations. In this context, interactive
multimedia technologies enable cultural organizations to implement
strategies of content dissemination which takes into account the
alternative ways information can be structured and communicated to
different publics. This paper will examine how strategies for multimedia
cultural heritage infrastructures and products are being formulated in
France and the policies that are being adopted.
Cary Karp, Director, Information Technology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Sweden
The International Museum Community's Position in the
Internet Domain Name System [ed. note: paper URL invalid Sept. 10, 2006: http://www.pi.se/karp/mw/mw97ck.htm]
One of the fundamental bases for the operation of the Internet is the
Domain Name System (DNS). This is a rigorously structured distributed
database system that is used to translate such things as the names of Web
sites into the numerical addresses used to establish communication with
host computers. The number of top level domains (.COM, .ORG, .UK, etc)
contained in the DNS is in the process of being expanded. This may result
in the museum community being able to establish a greater degree of
sectorial identity than it currently has.
A domain designation has obvious potential for providing an easily
remembered means for locating an organization's network resources.
Unfortunately, the demand for attractive domain names far exceeds the
supply. One of the reasons for the current DNS revision is to provide some
relief from this difficulty. If the museum community wishes to take
advantage of this potential it needs to articulate its needs clearly and
take corresponding action.
This presentation is intented to discuss possible approaches towards this
end. It will be introduced by a description of the basic workings of the
DNS and the domain registration process. Particular attention will be paid
to international initiatives designed to enhance the heritage sector's
prominence both in the DNS and in other registries of network resources.
Session 15: QuickTime Virtual Reality and the Museum
Tools which enable visitors to walk through spaces from another age or at
another scale that could have a significant impact on museums in the
future. By exploring some early implementations of QuickTime virtual
reality (QTVR) to the museum environment, this session will pose questions
about the technological requirements and opportunities as well as the
nature of the experiences for which virtual reality might be best suited.
QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) provides an opportunity for museums to
share collections, exhibits, and research with a diverse audience: in the
museum, in the classroom, and over the Internet. At the Illinois State
Museum, we have been using QTVR technology to provide educational
opportunities using collections and to enhance ongoing research efforts.
Perhaps the most exciting use to which the ISM has put QTVR is as a
component of the Museums in the Classroom project. Museums in the Classroom
is an initiative of the Illinois State Board of Education under which
museums, including the Illinois State Museum work closely with K-12
teachers and students throughout the state of Illinois to guide the
classes in creating online and off-line projects on topics of interest to
the museums and classes. In this project, the Illinois State Museum is
working with the Brookfield Zoo and 25 schools on projects featuring
natural and cultural diversity. An important component of this inte!
raction is allowing students to come to the museum and to help them create
QTVR objects of pieces from the museum collections which pertain to their
research. The students then incorporate these objects into their WWW
exhibits. Another important potential use of QTVR at the ISM involves
communication with scholars who would like to borrow items from the
collections for study. QTVR objects can be created of fragile items and
researchers can view these via the Internet before determining whether they
are needed. This may prevent shipping an item to a researcher only to have
them find that the crucial
portion of the specimen is not visible.
Charles M. Calvo, Digital Research and Imaging Lab, School of Architecture, Mississippi State University, A.L. Rosenberger, BioVisualization Lab, and Carl Hansen, Office of Imaging and Photographic Services, Smithsonian Institution
The Digital Darwins Web site is a
pilot project to demonstrate 1) the application of 3-D modeling and
visualization to the study of museum objects, and 2) the viability of the
Internet as a delivery medium for virtual museum material. The Digital
Darwins concept envisions the electronic delivery of museum objects to K-12
classrooms around the country, and the provision of those classrooms with
the hardware and software tools to enable students to create their own
digital models of specimens from their local environments to comparison and
interaction with the museum material. Thus students may truly become
scientists and researchers, and classrooms may become museums.
The Digital Darwins project is an interdisciplinary effort conducted jointly
with the BioVisualization of the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. Alfie
Rosenberger, Director. Charles Calvo, acting as Director of the S/ARC
Digital Research and Imaging Lab (DRIL) supervised two undergraduate
students during the month of July, 1996 to produce the Web site to coincide
with the Smithsonian's 150th anniversary. The site is the world's first
three-dimensional Natural History Web site. The work represents a
significant advance in the application of three-dimensional modeling and
visualization to morphology and systematic biology, especially in areas such
as feature identification, measurement and comparative study. And the work
demonstrates the potential to create exciting, object based delivery of
museum material to K-12 science classes via the Internet.
Museum networking and marketing potentials are being tapped in new ways on
the Web. Leaders in the profession examine the issues raised at the
conference from the perspective of major undertakings in which they are
involved and reflect on past lessons and future directions.
Chair: David Bearman, President, Archives & Museum Informatics, USA
