Center for Museum Studies

Museums for the New Millennium:

Technology Showcase

Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) A Heritage Forum and A Guide to Canadian Museums and Galleries. Presenter: Lyn Elliot Sherwood	The Canadian Heritage Information Network has recently developed the Heritage Forum and the Guide to Canadian Museums and Galleries. Both products reflect new directions and respond to emerging needs of the heritage community. The Forum and the Guide are based on a common vision of collective resources, shared efforts and benefits to all who participate.
The Computer Museum "The Computer Museum Network" Presenters: Oliver Strimpel and David Greschler	The Computer Museum Network is the museum's new World Wide Web site, supported in part by the National Science Foundation. It provides unique interactive experiences and information, based on the content and spirit of the on-site Computer Museum. There are areas on robotics and networks, a historical timeline spanning 50 years of computing, and a range of educational resources. The site gives each user a custom interface based on their age, and allows for communications between "virtual visitors."
Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI) Project CHIO (Cultural Heritage Information Online.) Presenter: John Perkins	The Cultural Heritage Information Online (CHIO) is a proof-of-concept that demonstrates solutions to the difficulties in achieving online access to cultural heritage information held in multiple databases, independent of the hardware and software used to store the data or search for it. Its main value is in demonstrating how a standards-based approach enhances access to cultural heritage information.
Getty Information Institute Museum Educational Site Licensing Presenters: Friday: Catherine Hays and Diana Vogelsong Saturday: Catherine Hays and Susan Jenson	The Museum Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL) brings representative museums, colleges, and universities together in a two year project that is exploring the terms and conditions for educational use of museums' digital images (and related textual information) on campus-wide networks. Project participants from the University of Maryland and American University will show examples of campus implementations of the MESL images and talk about some of the issues that are involved in making digital images available for classroom use and study purposes.
Illinois State Museum A QuickTime Virtual Reality and Museums on the Internet. Presenter: Richard S. Toomey, III	QuickTime (TM) Virtual Reality (QTVR) allows museums to provide meaningful and distributed access to collections, exhibitions, and research, thereby enhancing the museum's ability to reach diverse audiences in an engaging way. The presenters will demonstrate applications used at the Illinois State Museum, showing both objects and panoramas created by both museum staff and K-12 grade students, as part of the Museums in the Classroom project, an initiative of the Illinois State Board of Education.
Institut National de Recherce en Informatique et en Automatique Aquarelle Consortium Presenter: Jean-Louis Pascon	Aquarelle is a research and development project associating 23 partners from four countries of the European Union. It aims at designing and demonstrating a distributed information system offering access to part of the European cultural heritage documentation. AQUARELLE users are primarily professionals: curators, urban planners, publishers, researchers. AQUARELLE will support the creation and dissemination of multimedia folders and detailed catalogues, broadcasting of queries, multilingual information retrieval and copyright protection. The project is planned for four years, 1995-1998 and is supported by the European Commission.
Museum of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia Way Point One Presenter: Matthew Nickson	This presentation focuses on a hybrid CD-ROM, with inbuilt connectivity to a Museum of Victoria World Wide Web site, containing sixteen "stories" relating to collections and exhibitions of the museum. A unique feature of the CD-ROM is a tool called Intactive Systems Markup Language (ISML) embedded within the CD-ROM which allows users to create their own multimedia presentations.
Mystic Seaport Museum America and the Sea Information System. Presenter: Guy Hermann	This demonstration will focus on a comprehensive digital information system being developed by Mystic Seaport Museum using Internet and Intranet technologies. Mr. Hermann will demonstrate integrated browsing and searching of multiple distributed information sources and can discuss technical and management issues involved in implementing the system in a large, diverse, and independent-minded institution.
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology Project CREATE and The Mesopotamian Collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum CD-ROM. Presenters: Daniel Sipe, Gillian Wakely and Mary Day Kent	"The Mesopotamian Collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum" CD-ROM represents a new approach to using sophisticated technology for museum education and a closer collaboration with schools. The CD-ROM was made in five months by ninth graders from a Philadelphia high school as a pilot production of Project CREATE. The students literally created their own museum and transformed their relationship to the museum. The demonstrators will discuss Project CREATE. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Education, a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Moore College of Art and Design and the School District of Philadelphia. The project supports teachers in making CD-ROMS and other digitized multi-media as the output of standard courses.

America's Smithsonian Exhibition A Visible Interactive Audio Tours Presenter: Tracy L. Goldsmith	The America's Smithsonian project contracted with the California-based company Visible Interactive to create an interactive audio tour for the Smithsonian's 150th anniversary traveling exhibition. The technology is a modified Apple Newton message pad, a hand-held computer with a touch screen interface. The self-contained program in the unit's hard drive allows a random access tour including 44 "stops" highlighting 60 objects in the exhibition. This tour technology is one avenue for museums wishing to utilize the latest advancements in computers and connectivity, allowing for a different level and type of accessibility to an exhibition without compromising institutional mission or integrity.
Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies/Smithsonian Folkways Crossroads: Southern Routes, Music of the American South Presenters: Michael Maloney and Stephanie Smith	"Crossroads" provides an innovative multimedia educational approach to southern music. Developed in partnership with Microsoft, this enhanced CD operates as both an audio CD and a CD-ROM and enables the user to link to the Internet by way of the Smithsonian Folkways Home Page.
Environmental Awareness Program Ocean Planet Presenters: Naina Mistry and Ione Anderson	The demonstration will feature the Smithsonian's first online exhibition, "Ocean Planet." The electronic exhibition was organized around the floor plan and incorporates all text, graphics, audio and video from the actual exhibition. It also provides built-in links to other sources of oceanography and marine science information available through the internet. Ocean Planet Online is a joint project of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Smithsonian's Environmental Awareness Program.
National Museum of the American Indian NMAI's Webpage Presenter: Robert Billingsley	Every major function of the National Museum of the American Indian is represented on the webpage. The webpage highlights NMAI's special mission to collaborate and work in conjunction with Native Americans and to maintain communication between NMAI and Native communities and others who are unable to visit our museum in person. CoNexus, a new page designed by NMAI to incorporate up-to-the-minute images and descriptions of live cultural presentations at the Heye Center in New York, debuted at the Smithsonian 150th celebration at the future site of the NMAI museum on the National Mall. CoNexus allows people worldwide to view Native American presentations at events in Washington and at the Heye Center in New York.
National Museum of American Art NMAA's Website and CD Rom collection Presenters Mike Briggs and Nina Tovish	NMAA's website offers a rich resource to the broad spectrum of the public interested in American art--students and teachers, researchers and scholars -- as well as casual and self-directed general audiences. It offers images of artwork, contextualizing information (text, audio, video, images), online versions of current and past exhibitions, commentary by curators, the full text of one major collection catalog, and opportunities for the user to ask questions or offer feedback. A forthcoming CD ROM highlights over 750 works of art in the collection, contains full text of five collections catalogs, offers fun and informative media clips, a Director's Choice multimedia tour, and search tools that are both powerful and intuitive.
National Museum of American History "Knowledge Navigation of Museum Collections" Presenter: David Allison	The National Museum of American History will demonstrate a prototype of a knowledge navigation system designed by Willoughby Associates and Intell/Agent. The system incorporates natural language searching and knowledge authorities. The system is HTML-based and may be accessed by internal users via an intranet or external users via the Internet. The system will enable non-technical users to explore NMAH's resources by linking objects, people, places, subjects, and historic events.
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education Kids' Castle Presenter: Thomas Lowderbaugh	This demonstration spotlights "Kids' Castle," a new part of Smithsonian Online, the Institution's service over the commercial America Online network. Designed specifically for children ages six through twelve, Kid's Castle seeks to educate its audience while engaging it with images, sound bytes, contests, games, message boards and live events, all drawn from Smithsonian resources. The presenter will discuss how museums can make use of the Internet's interactive capabilities to reach and serve audiences, how museums can attract and please on-line visitors and how use of the Internet can allow museums to change the public's expectations of museums.
Office of Imaging, Printing and Photographic Services Digitizing Images Presenter: Jim Wallace	The Smithsonian Institution Office of Imaging, Printing and Photographic Services provides online images ranging from air and space to science, technology, history, and even current events. These image files are designed to be downloaded and viewed at home or in school to provide the opportunity to see and learn about many of the Smithsonian's interests, objects, and exhibits.
Office of Information Technology Architectural History and Historic Preservation Presenters: Mignon Erixon-Stanford and Cynthia Field	Architectural History and Historic Preservation's web site features the Buildings of the Smithsonian, as well as the quarterly newsletter "Smithsonian Preservation Notes."
Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) Presenters: Beverly Westermeyer and Tom Garnett	SIRIS is an internet-accessible collection of research catalogs maintained by the Smithsonian Institution's libraries, archives and manuscripts, films, sound recordings, paintings, sculptures, and other materials. The demonstrators will show web access to the SIRIS catalogs: how to search the catalogs, retrieve SIRIS records and link from SIRIS records to digital resources maintained by the Institution's libraries, archives and research units participating in SIRIS. Currently, the digital resources include text, html pages, still images and digital video files that are stored on various servers across the Institution and referenced from records in the SIRIS catalogs.
Smithsonian Institution Libraries "Digital Library Program" Presenter: Martin Kalfatovic	The Smithsonian Institution Libraries will demonstrate from its website its new Digital Library program. The demonstrator will display the Libraries' virtual exhibition, "Science and the Artist's Book." The exhibition shows rare scientific texts which have inspired the creation of artist's books of unusual appeal. The Libraries' full-text series re-publishing scarce and out-of-print research bulletins of the Bureau of American Ethnology and "Hair Pipes in Plains Indian Adornment" will also be shown.
Smithsonian Productions Smithsonian Multimedia Presenter: Lee Woodman	Smithsonian Productions will demonstrate two CD-ROMs: "150 Years of America's Smithsonian" and a prototype of "Smithsonian Guide to the Information Age". "150 Years of America's Smithsonian" is the official electronic guide to the current national touring exhibition. A collection of more than 300 artifacts from the Smithsonian's 16 museums and galleries, and the National Zoo, the "Smithsonian Guide to the Information Age" prototype provides insight into technology and its impact on society during the last 100 years. Users can learn about the major technologies, including telegraphy, radio, television, computers, and are invited to share their own experiences in a virtual exhibition on-line.

(updated October 16, 1996)

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