Jonathan Bowen is considered by many

as the `founding father' of the Virtual

Library museums pages (www.icom.org/

vlmp), one of the premier Internet sites in

the museum field. He is a lecturer at the

Department of Computer Science,

University of Reading (United Kingdom),

where he leads the Formal Methods and

Software Engineering Group and was

previously a senior researcher at the

Oxford University Computing Laboratory.

He has worked in the field of computing

in both industry and academia since

1977 and has served on more than

fifteen programme committees including

a major working group within the

European Union information

technologies programme, ESPRIT. The

author of 140 publications including

nine books, Jonathan Bowen won the

1994 IEE (Institution of Electrical

Engineers) Charles Babbage Premium

award. In 1997 he was honorary chair,

workshop presenter and an invited

speaker at the first `Museums and the

Web' conference and has been an active

participant in subsequent conferences.

This issue of Museum International, to-

gether with the previous issue, is dedi-

cated to online museums. In the first issue

we explored how online museum `com-

munities' are being formed and organized;

here we consider some experiences of

individual museums in using the Internet

and the Web in presenting themselves

online.

Museums are traditionally information

providers, drawing on and interpreting

their collections for their visitors. Schools,

the general public, tourists, scholars, etc.,

all potential museum visitors, are informa-

tion gatherers. Previously these gatherers

have had to physically visit the informa-

tion providers; however, with the advent

of the Internet, it is increasingly possible

for the providers to reach out to the

gatherers who may be located in their

homes, workplaces, schools, libraries, etc.

Museums are well placed to provide real

content that is appealing to network users.

Producing a Web site can be difficult for

museums. The first question should be,

`Why do we want or need a Web site?'

Answers will vary for different museums,

but it is very important to consider the

experience from the point of view of

virtual visitors and what they might wish

to gain from using the museum Web site,

rather than just considering what the

museum has to offer. A museum with an

online presence needs to build up its vir-

tual visitor community just as it is desirable

to encourage return visits by real visitors.

Here are some particular points to con-

sider when creating a museum Web site:

• Do not try to re-create the `traditional'

museum experience. The Web is a

different medium with its own strengths

and weaknesses, which should be

exploited to enhance the virtual visitor

experience. Vast amounts of informa-

tion such as museum catalogue data-

bases can be made available online at

relatively little cost since computer disk

storage is cheap.

• Obvious and consistent navigation aids

should be included on all pages within a

Web site to allow a visitor to move easily

within the site. For example, in a

physical museum it may be difficult to

find the entrance hall from some gal-

leries, but in a virtual museum all loca-

tions should include a hyperlink directly

back to the home page for the museum.

• Avoid making high-quality graphical

images available unless you are happy

for them to be reused by others. Such

images are slow-loading and should

never be included in navigation pages

within a Web site. In addition, copyright

issues may need to be addressed. It is

worthwhile including a copyright notice

where appropriate, but online copyright

is an evolving area. Virtual visitors

expect images, so low- and medium-

resolution images (which do not print

very well, but are adequate for screen

viewing) should certainly be included.

• A popular reason for searching a mu-

seum Web site is to learn about a

museum that may be located far from

where the virtual visitor lives. This

certainly raises awareness of the mu-

seum and could well influence a visit if

the person is ever in the same vicinity as

the museum. This would bear further

investigation to see exactly how large

the effects are in practice. Whatever the

influence exerted, it is likely to increase

exponentially because of the expansion

in use of the Internet itself.

Perhaps the most important feature in the

design of a Web site for a museum is the

home page or location at which most

4 ISSN 1350-0775, Museum International (UNESCO, Paris), No. 205 (Vol. 52, No. 1, 2000)ß UNESCO 2000

Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF (UK) and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 (USA)

The virtual museumJonathan Bowen

virtual visitors first arrive. The home page

and other important, frequently used

navigation pages should load quickly.

Large, slow-loading multimedia resources

(high-quality images, interactive media,

video, audio, etc.) should be downloaded

to the virtual visitor once an item of

particular interest (e.g. associated with a

specific museum object or gallery) has

been reached.

An important facility that museums can

provide is the presentation of online

virtual exhibitions, perhaps mirroring

actual exhibitions in the galleries, both

temporary and permanent. This also

allows access to material not otherwise

generally available, such as objects in

store (normally the vast majority of a

serious museum's collection), or those too

fragile or sensitive for display. A recent

survey has discovered that around three-

quarters of virtual visitors expect to find

virtual exhibitions at museum Web sites.1

Increasingly, multimedia using graphics,

sound, video, as well as text, is possible.

The same survey indicates that 87 per cent

of people visiting museum Web sites

expect to find images. A major limiting

factor at the moment is the speed of

access, but this is likely to increase in the

future (although not as fast as many

would like).

Newsgroups and mailing lists allow dis-

cussion between a group of people,

potentially geographically distributed

throughout the world. Although museums

could use suitable newsgroups to pub-

licize their activities, so far few have taken

advantage of this very cheap avenue of

information dissemination to any great

extent, perhaps due to lack of appreciation

of the possibilities offered to interact with

potential visitors. The Deja Web site

(www.deja.com/) provides a convenient

interface to many newsgroups.

Probably the most common reason for

visiting a museum Web site is to explore a

personal interest. A survey could well

help with ascertaining the most useful

types of information presentation and

museums could put greater effort into

more popular parts of their virtual sites.

Most Web servers can record the number

of `hits' per page automatically, and this

information could be very helpful in

determining how the Web site is being

used. Online forms for feedback (similar

to the more traditional visitor books) are

also worth while. In any case, it is very

important for a museum to think carefully

about why it wants or needs a virtual Web

site, and what potential benefits this could

bring.

This issue of Museum International pre-

sents the experiences of a number of

diverse museums in creating, and even

more importantly maintaining, an online

presence. Jim Angus of the Natural History

Museum of Los Angeles County in

California has much practical experience

of these issues, having almost single-

handedly set up the Web site for his

museum. His article distils some of this

knowledge.

While the United States certainly main-

tains a lead in the percentage of museums

with their own Web presence, museums

from all over the world are starting to

create Web sites. A. Enis Cetin, Omer N.

Gerek and Ahmed H. Tewfik present the

experience of creating a Web site for the

Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul,

Turkey, a museum with rich and diverse

offerings.

Jim Devine has been very active in

creating an interesting Web site for the

Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, Scotland.

He has used advanced technology such as

QuickTime Virtual Reality to create online

ß UNESCO 2000 5

virtual reality access to galleries. In his

article with Ray Welland he covers some

of the multimedia projects involving his

museum. With the Hunterian Museum's

location within the University of Glasgow,

Jim Devine has made full use of access to

computer science students who are nor-

mally very keen to collaborate in the pro-

duction of Web-based resources for projects

as part of their courses. This is something

that other museums would be well advised

to foster with their local university since it

can result in excellent online resources at

very low cost to the museum.

MUVA, the Virtual Museum of Arts El Pais,

is unusual in that it is solely a virtual

museum with no corresponding actual

museum associated with it. Created in

Uruguay to showcase art that could not be

seen elsewhere, it is the country's first

virtual museum. It is very graphical in its

presentation and has won a `Museums

and the Web' conference Best of the Web

Award. Alicia Haber presents the experi-

ence of setting up a virtual museum,

including the thorny question of how to

budget for such a project.

Lin Hsin Hsin is an artist and poet from

Singapore who has created her own online

Art Museum that, like MUVA, has no

corresponding museum in reality. This

virtual museum is a very personal project,

reflecting the vision of a single artist. It

clearly demonstrates that one of the great

benefits of the Web is that it empowers

individuals to act creatively, often to greater

effect than much larger organizations.

Bogota 's Museum of Gold is one of the

rare Colombian institutions to have

established a presence on the Internet.

Eduardo Londono describes the experi-

ence of setting up the Web site and how it

was revamped as users' expectations

become increasingly demanding.

Finally, Greg Van Alstyne is in charge of

the Web site for the Museum of Modern

Art (MoMA) in New York, an extremely

stylish site which won the top Best of the

Web Award at the 1998 `Museums and the

Web' conference. The site takes a mini-

malist approach, very much in keeping

with the style of the museum itself, and

the article presents some of the design

philosophy behind it. Other museums

would do well to visit MoMA online to

attempt to emulate and learn from the

structure and graphical presentation of

this site.

While it is very important for individual

museums to have their own online

presence in the form of a Web site, e-mail

communication and so on, as emphasized

in the previous issue, it will be increas-

ingly necessary for museums to organize

themselves in a collective manner online.

A recent example of such an initiative in

the United Kingdom is the 24 Hour

Museum (www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/).

This includes information on some 2,000

museums around the United Kingdom,

whether or not they provide their own

online information, accessible as a search-

able database.

A number of museums that do have their

own Web sites are participating more

actively as pilot sites. Each of these mu-

seums provides special hidden informa-

tion as part of their Web site that indicates

the location of important standard data

such as museum location, opening times,

facilities for the disabled, etc. (Around

thirty such categories have been desig-

nated.) These pilot museums have ex-

panded entries in the 24 Hour Museum

database allowing virtual visitors access

directly to the information they require

about a particular museum without having

to enter the museum's home page and

then search for the data in a more

6 ß UNESCO 2000

haphazard manner. The 24 Hour Museum

Web site also includes museum news,

resources especially for children and a

featured museum `Web site of the Week',

making it a dynamic site which visitors

may wish to revisit. The 24 Hour Museum

was recently designated a national mu-

seum by Chris Smith, the UK government

minister in charge of the Department of

Culture, Media and Sport, and the site may

well become the main online portal for

UK museums.

The English novelist Penelope Lively

(born 1933) wrote in her book Moon

Tiger (1987) that `we carry a museum

inside our heads'. Perhaps the Web is a

way for museums to make some of their

more ethereal information available to all.

But it should be recalled that online

facilities are complementary to traditional

museum services; `virtual museums' will

not replace real museums, but instead

should be used as a tool which en-

courages actual visits to actual museums.

■

Note

1. J. P. Bowen, `Time for Renovations: A

Survey of Museum Web Sites', in D. Bearman

and J. Trant (eds.), Museums and the Web

1999: Selected Papers from an International

Conference, New Orleans, 11±14 March 1999,

pp. 163±72, Pittsburgh, Pa., Archives &

Museum Informatics, 1999.

ß UNESCO 2000 7