Museums and the Web - Multimedia Tools Workshop
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Multimedia Sampler

DATABASES

EXHIBITIONS

WWW ART

Multimedia in Museum Databases

For over thirty years museums worldwide have been in the processing of automating information on their collections. These efforts have reflected the technology of the day -- from the mainframe dinosaurs and time sharing systems to client server and now Internet and Intranet technologies.

The Peabody Museum is a good example of this. Automation of collections information has progressed over a fourteen year period from a time-sharing system to an in-house mini-computer system and now a client server networked environment. Previous systems were developed in-house and access to the system was through the system managers. We are now moving to a collections management system with imaging capability and will have a subset of the museum's database on-line during 1997.

Peabody EmbARK Project

The Harvard University Museums of Art are also involved in an extensive database project using EmbARK. In addition, they are offering access to certain parts of their collection via the worldwide web.

Sargent at Harvard

A number of other museums offer www access to their collections information now. Recently, the Canadian Heritage Information Network added this to their web site as did the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Canadian Heritage Information Network

National Gallery of Art (USA)

 

Multimedia in Exhibitions

Multimedia in exhibitions may take the form of video canvases as in the work of Bill Viola, or it may combine audio and video as well as featuring objects and works of art in the physical space. There are many examples of performance art or installations of video and audio chronicled for museums in the last five to ten years.

Over the last seven years the use of multimedia has increasingly been presented as a informational feature of the exhibit using a kiosk and CD-ROM. More recently www workstation have also been incorporated into an exhibit. This section of the presentation focuses on how museums use the www and CD-ROM in gallery presentations, for virtual museums and for virtual exhibitions.

Virtual Exhibitions

"Against the Winds:
American Indian Running Traditions"

The Tenement Museum, New York, NY

Virtual Museums

The Computer Museum, Boston, MA

Museum of Science-Boston, On-Line Museum

Other museums have used CD-ROM kiosks in the gallery to provide additional information about an exhibit or as games based on the exhibit like a scavenger hunt through ancient Rome. This is not new, what's new is the use of the www in galleries, as virtual complements to the museum or for virtual exhibits existing only in cyberspace.

In gallery presentations the Guggenheim Museum SoHo - ENEL VR Gallery and CD-ROM Reading Room - allows the visitor to visit virtual worlds via helmet and joystick and allows the visitor to browse several CD-ROMs selections.

 

Multimedia Art: The use of the WWW as a medium

 

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