CyberMuseology:
Taking the museum to the Net/Taking digital media to the museum
Steve Dietz
It is no longer a question of whether museums should have Web sites. There remains the issue of what they are best for. One might as well ask what is electricity for.
As a metamedium, digital media convey information and convert it into new digital objects. The digital medium is Protean.
Rather than arguing what museums should do on the Web, "CyberMuseology" maps some of the traditional functions of the museum--collection, preservation, research, interpretation, exhibition-- against some of the distinctive characteristics of digital media--the network, interactivity, computabililty. Are there any discoveries to be made from exploring different examples around the World Wide Web?
Perhaps more importantly, just as new technologies such as the telescope and microscope affect what we can see, which in turn affects what we do see--how we see--how do the possibilities opened up by museums' migration to the Web affect what museums do and how we understand them?
"CyberMuseology" is an introductory exposition of museological activities on the Internet, mostly by museums of art and visual culture.
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The Bakken Library and Museum is a center for education and learning that furthers the understanding of the history, cultural context, and applications of electricity and magnetism in the life sciences and medicine.
From the Mountains of the Moon to the Neon Paintbrush: Seeing and Technology. Peter Walsh's keynote at the 1999 Museums & the Web conference makes the historical case for how optical technologies have affected what not only what we see but how we thinkg about seeing.
Proteus, keeper of the seals, knew all things past, present, and future but was able to change his shape at will to avoid the necessity of prophesying.
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