Sunday, April 22, 2012

I Spy: The CIA Museum Tour

What comes to mind when you think of the CIA?  If you're like me, you might think of all the questionable meddling in international politics this agency did in the 70s and 80s.  If you have a better view of this federal entity, perhaps spies and intrigue come to mind.  But apparently the CIA is more than that - they have a museum of declassified artifacts set up within their compound in Washington DC, and they've helpfully made some of those artifacts available for online viewing.

The museum tour is nicely set up:  the opening screen brings you to a virtual room filled with virtual cabinets, each of which contains a few artifacts that are organized by theme.  You can click on each artifact to get several different views, plus its dimensions and a brief history of how it was used.  I'm impressed by the brevity shown here - the object descriptions are informative but never overwhelming with facts.  There are many museums, both physical and virtual, that could stand to learn about label writing from the CIA.

The diversity of artifacts is interesting, too.  These objects span all of Cold War history and also delve into some of our more recent conflicts.  There are insignia from the CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, and some mementos from the CIA's founding.  There's flight gear and several examples of CIA technology that made its way into civilian fields.  There's all manner of spy equipment, from compacts that reveal codes to cameras for pigeons to devices shaped like flies and fish.  There's even the Enigma Machine, which was used by the Nazis to create codes during WWII.  You can definitely learn a lot about the history of American spying from these artifacts.

But what you can't learn is any of the organization's controversies or its darker stories.  The CIA has not been just about defeating Nazis and keeping the Soviets at bay.  The organization has done terrible things in developing countries, almost always putting America's needs ahead of all others.  I'm sure the CIA would never admit to that on their website or in their museum, but burying this history under a lot of cool artifacts goes a long way towards helping us forget what was done in the name of freedom.

So while this is a very interesting and worthwhile museum to visit, it's important to keep in mind just what these objects represent.  Be awed and informed, but don't forget the severe whitewashing that's going on, and that this government-sponsored museum has an agenda to pursue.


The CIA Museum Tour
Mission:  The CIA Museum supports the Agency's operational, recruitment and training missions and helps visitors better understand CIA and the contributions it makes to national security.
Website:  https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/cia-museum/cia-museum-tour


Sunday, April 15, 2012

Birthplace of a Nation: The Mount Vernon Online Museum

George Washington, as the first president of the United States, has wormed his way into many different facets of our lives.  Besides his role in the founding of our nation, we all learned the apocryphal story of the cherry tree as children.  I remember a jump rope chant and an alternate version of the song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" that made use of his name, and I'm sure there are many other references to this Founding Father out there.  Now George Washington and his home have found a place on the internet, in the form of the Mount Vernon Online Museum.

Mount Vernon was the Washington family's estate in Virginia, and for over a hundred years it has operated as a historic house open for visitors.  It's pretty unusual for a historic house to have a strong online presence (mainly because these museums are often small and poorly funded), but since Mount Vernon is so well-known and heavily visited I suppose an online museum was the logical next step.  Currently there are four exhibits:  The Making of a Military Man, Setting George Washington's Table, Rereading Washington Through His Library, and a section about excavation at Mount Vernon.

Each of these exhibits is accompanied by five images of artifacts in the Mount Vernon collection, which are well-labeled and explained with just the right amount of information.  I like that the exhibits tackle somewhat unusual subjects, and not just the typical military-and-politics parts of Washington's life.  It lets us see some day-to-day aspects of this great man's life, and by showing some but not all of Mount Vernon's collection, it becomes a great selling point for the physical museum.

Beyond the images and the topics, though, I'm not terribly impressed with these exhibits.  The main content is long paragraphs set in a small text box, which you have to scroll and click through to read in their entirety.  This reminded me overly detailed Wikipedia pages and made me skim through the information instead of reading and trying to connect it with the objects.  In a physical exhibit I imagine that this text would be spread out throughout a gallery, making it more palatable, but having it all scrunched into one place online isn't really user-friendly.

Hopefully this is just the starting point for Mount Vernon.  I imagine that as their online capacity grows, they'll learn what works online and what doesn't and apply that to make their virtual content even better. I would love to see more objects and have the exhibits based around them instead of around text.  There's got to be so much contained within Mount Vernon that could be shared online, and I hope to be able to check back at a later date and see what new things the museum has for us to explore.


The Mount Vernon Online Museum
Website:  www.mountvernon.org/pre-exhibits