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

International Mail: The Online Museum of Persian Stamps

To be honest, I've never really understood how people get into stamp collecting.  Sure, stamps can have interesting images on them, but spending time and tens of thousands of dollars to acquire what are essentially stickers seems a little strange to me.  And now that mail volume is plummeting as people choose to do more and more over the internet, stamps seem to be less and less relevant.  But they still are fun to look at, and sometimes they can tell stories.  At least, this is what I got from the Online Museum of Persian Stamps.

A project of FarsiNet, this museum is compiled from personal collections and visitor submissions.  The stamps cover a wide time period, from 1889 to the 2003 earthquake.  Through the images on the stamps you can trace Iran's modern history: as a battle site during World War One, as a dynasty rules by the Shahs, and finally as an Islamic republic.

Most of this information, though, you'll have to glean from the stamps themselves.  The museum is frustratingly sparse on information, with text accompanying fewer than half of its image galleries.  The information that is presented is good, and there are a couple of links to outside sources, but for the most part you are left gazing at stamps without explanation.  It would really benefit the museum to have interpretation explaining just why all these stamps were considered important enough to display.

To the layperson, this is frustrating.  But I suppose that the philatelists among us, who enjoy stamps for their pure physical form, would be much more appreciative of this museum.  I really want to like the idea of a museum telling a nation's history through stamps, because it's a fascinating concept that our mail can tell our stories.  To the non-stamp collectors, I would recommend keeping this museum open in one tab while simultaneously clicking through a history of Iran on a more informative website.


The Online Museum of Persian Stamps
Website:  www.farsinet.com/tambr

Children's Play: The Helen Keller Kids Museum

This is the first time I've come across a virtual children's museum, and I've got to say I'm not sure how I feel about the whole concept.  I work at a children's museum with a physical space, and everyday I encounter kids running through out exhibits, exploring, touching everything and learning by doing.  The idea of a children's museum where the only tactile thing visitors do is click from one page to the next seems like the exact opposite of my expectations.

The Helen Keller Kids Museum, no matter what its form, would never really lend itself to interactive exhibits.  The subject here is a historical figure who is mainly known through her life story and her writings.  Perhaps, then, the internet is the best place to display a museum devoted to this fascinating subject.  And since so many children learn about Helen Keller during their elementary school days, it is nice to have a lot of information on her life gathered in one kid-friendly place.

A project of the American Foundation for the Blind, the Helen Keller Kids Museum delivers the story of Helen Keller's life in segments that focus on the different stages of her development (her childhood, for example, or her activism work).  Each of these sections are broken down further into small chunks of text accompanied by photographs.  The writing is pretty well suited for children, and the photographs are never paired with too much text.  I like how the information is conveyed, in a way that's easy for children to understand.

This is what the Helen Keller Kids Museum does well - but that's about all they do.  There is a section where Helen Keller's great-grandniece answers questions that people send in, but there are no other parts to this museum.  A few games or other interactives would be nice - perhaps something that conveys just what living in a dark, noiseless world would be like.  And what about deaf, blind children who are living today?  What are their stories?  There is a lot of potential to make these disabilities relevant to today's children, but the museum doesn't follow those paths.

The Helen Keller Kids Museum is very informative in a child-centered way, and I can see it being a great resource for the countless children who are tasked each year with writing Helen Keller biographies.  I'm also grateful to the museum for making me aware of the possibilities of bringing children's museums online and breaking down barriers to learning.  The model that the Helen Keller Kids Museum presents, though, is not really analogous to physical children's museums.  Kids need to be able to explore and play alongside gaining knowledge, and I don't see that happening with this museum.  With just a few changes and additions, though, this museum could lead the way in virtual children's museums.


Helen Keller Kids Museum
Mission:  The American Foundation for the Blind designed the museum to teach kids about Helen Keller's remarkable life.
Website:  www.braillebug.org/hkmuseum.asp

King Me: The Online Museum of Checkers History

I'll admit I don't know much about checkers, aside from what colors are represented on the board.  That's probably because I don't really have the patience to play slow games - heck, I don't even like puzzles because they take too long.  So it would be nice to have a museum at my fingertips that could explain the game and its history in a format that would allow me to choose how much I want to learn.  So I'm sorry to report that although it tries very hard to be helpful, the Online Museum of Checkers History doesn't even come close to fulfilling that desire.

The online museum started as a way to save the contents of the International Checker Hall of Fame, which burned to the ground five years ago.  It seems that this site is the work of a few dedicated fans, with contributions from several players.  It's a noble effort, but the execution of the online museum leaves a lot to be desired.  Many pages are way too long and contain mountains of text in various sizes, colors, and fonts.  There's an abundance of all-caps typing and ellipses, which makes you very unwilling to read more than a few words.  Combined with scrolling text and some very weird graphics, the online museum resembles one of those long-lost Geosites personal webpages.

Some of the galleries on the museum are informative, like the images of old game boards and rosters of players from tournaments past.  I also find it interesting that the museum's administrators are trying to crowdsource its content by asking visitors to submit images and artifacts.  But the information is hard to glean from the terrible formatting, and in some cases I'm not even sure it's reliable.  In the Timeline section, for example, there are plenty of events whose date is listed only as "???" - which is not just unhelpful but also unprofessional.

I admire the creators of the Online Museum of Checkers History for their dedication to rebuilding a physical museum into a new format, and for soliciting the expertise of their fellow players in creating content.  Their effort, though, has produced a mish-mash of words, text, and dubious information.  I can imagine that a checkers enthusiast would enjoy this museum, but not many others could say the same.  So until this site makes some serious changes, I would recommend finding your checkers information somewhere else.


Online Musuem of Checkers History
Website:  www.online-museum-of-checkers-history.com

Greener Pastures: The Environmental Art Museum

I know what the environment is, and I know what art is, but it was hard for me to picture what those two words together mean.  Does an environmental artist have to work solely in recycled materials?  Do they create their art in nature?  Are there carbon offsets involved?  It turns out the the term "environmental art" covers a wide range of projects, and the Environmental Art Museum showcases an interesting selection of examples.

According to the museum's page of definitions, environmental art "is art that helps us improve our relationship with the natural world".  That seems like it could cover a lot of the art that's been made throughout human history, doesn't it?  The definition continues, explaining that environmental art is often "ephemeral", site-specific, and involves partnerships with non-artists.  That narrows it down a little bit, but it's still a pretty broad definition - which explains why the art featured here is so diverse.

There is, for example, a disc which claims that the column of air extending above as independent from any nation.  There's also a lace canopy that serves as an irrigation system for the grass seeds planted within it, and a landfill that was made into colorful crop circles.  For each of these works you can read about the artist and their explanation for each piece, and there are many links to the artist's website and to external information.  You can also view images of the art at different sizes, which really helps in getting a sense of location and context for these pieces.

If you're interested in more information about environmental art in general, there are in-depth guides for how you can this art to a classroom, a park and your community.  There's also a well-written section on the working methods of environmental art, so that you could (in theory, at least) create your own piece.  If you're searching for a more academic take on environmental art, there are several essays written by the museum's volunteers, though I found them a little too long and dry for popular consumption.

The only thing I wish I could change about this museum is the way the artists and art are presented.  There are a few featured artists strewn around the homepage, but otherwise you have a navigate through a sidebar listing all the artists alphabetically.  Maybe it's because I think in categories, but I wish these artists has been grouped in some sort of logical way - perhaps by medium or working location.  Scrolling through a list and hoping to come across something you find interesting is not the best way explore a new form of art.

In some sense, I wonder whether this website is contradictory to the terms of environmental art.  After all, if environmental art is about location-specific work subject to the ravages of nature, why is it being preserved on the internet?  Although viewing images on a screen does take something away from each piece, it is interesting to see and learn about art you may never get to experience in person.  I would recommend poking around at the Environmental Art Museum, but keep in mind as you browse that you're only seeing a part of the whole.


Environmental Art Museum
Mission:  Our goal is to inform, inspire and connect people through environmental art and encourage the creation of new work that serves communities and ecosystems.
Website:  www.greenmuseum.org

From the Great Beyond: The Museum of Talking Boards

And what, you're probably asking, is a talking board?  It's a category of games that includes Ouija Boards and all other game boards that purport to answer any question we ask of them.  As a child I was told that these types of games were tools of the devil, so I know next to nothing about them.  And while I maintain a healthy skepticism about the power of these games, it was interesting to learn about them, even from an obviously biased source.

The introductory screen of the Museum of Talking Boards is rather off-putting, because it consists of a large block of text with only one link to the museum's content.  You have to navigate through the museum's site map to find everything on the website, and many of the sections here are also word-dense.  You might not want to read everything, but you can glean plenty of interesting nuggets of information.  There's Ouija Board lore, for example, as well as a history of talking boards in the movies and a description of their "therapeutic" uses.

The best section of the museum is the gallery of boards.  Here you can find images of dozens of boards from the past, each with information on when it was made and the company that manufactured it.  For some of the boards you can view larger images along with a more detailed description.  This section is nice because it not only illustrates the museum's content but also places these boards in a historical context.

I wish, though, that the museum was more objective.  I guess it's almost inevitable that a museum devoted to Ouija Boards would slant in favor of their supposed powers, and indeed this one believes in them so much that there it includes information on how to use and care for talking boards.  The only nod to disbelief is an article on automatism (the idea that unconscious hand motions control the board's message indicator) and how it stacks up to the ideas of spiritualists.

So although the Museum of Talking Boards is quite interesting and can help answer some questions for those of use who are unfamiliar with talking boards, I wouldn't recommend it for those seeking concrete answers.  Psychologists have addressed automatism and its relation to our subconscious in countless research studies.  Those might make a nice companion to viewing this museum, bringing together a history of modern spiritualism with a rational explanation of how talking boards work.

Museum of Talking Boards
Wensite:  www.museumoftalkingboards.com

Chips and Wafers: The Intel Online Exhibits

It seems that many online exhibits (or at least, many of the ones I've encountered so far) center around technology.  Whether these museums are about cameras or computers or software, they are likely to be awash in jargon and technical drawings.  This is no doubt due to the nature of these museums' subjects - if you enjoy putting together computers or designing new image capture programs, you're probably more inclined to also work on a virtual exhibition.  The Intel Online Exhibits are another entry in this virtual exhibit genre, although this may be the one case where I wish there was more information.

There are four virtual exhibits you can explore at Intel's website:  From Sand to Circuits (which explains how silicon chips are made), a biography of co-founder Robert Noyce, an explanation of Moore's Law, and a presentation on the 4004, Intel's first proto-computer.  From Sand to Circuits was probably the best exhibit, because it has several different layers you canto engage with.  The opening screen provides a layman's description of how computer chips are made.  You can also choose to look at the Fun Facts section, which is an even briefer explanation, or download a PDF that contains everything you could ever want to know about Intel's chips.  It's nice that all this information isn't crammed together but is instead presented in a way that allows you to choose how much you want to learn.

The Robert Noyce biography is rather on the short side, and I wish they had concentrated on his legacy and his posthumous contributions to the field of informal science (though I might be biased in that case). There are photos and videos of him included in this exhibit, but I could go to Wikipedia and get almost the same experience.

The Intel 4004 section is more comprehensive than any of the other exhibits, but it's short on practical information.  Here you can view photos and historical documents (like technical drawings and manuals), which I suppose can appeal to historical computer nerds.  In terms of explanation for the rest of us, though, this exhibit could use some help.  It took a lot of searching and reading to figure out just what was special about the 4004, and I'm still not entirely clear on its role in the computer pantheon.

I was excited to see there was a section on Gordon Moore, because I'm actually familiar with the prediction he's most famous for.  The essence of Moore's Law is that computers will get faster, smaller and less expensive as time goes on, and this has been exactly what's happened to technology in the 47 years since Moore first made this prediction.  But that's not how Intel explains it - instead, they quote Moore directly and then fail to really explain what this law means.  It would help to have some kind of discussion of the implication of Moore's Law - for example, how has this law driven industry?  And can we expect it to continue on indefinitely, or is there a limit?

I guess if there is one thing the Intel Online Exhibits taught me, it's that I do have some underlying curiosity about technology.  I actually would like to know more about the 4004, the life of Robert Noyce, and what Moore's Law tells us about the future.  From Sand to Circuits points out the way to answer these questions for visitors:  construct exhibits as layers of information, and let us choose what we want to explore.  This, I think, could be an excellent way to bring computer expertise to the masses and break down the barriers to knowledge about technology.


Intel Online Exhibits
Website:  www.intel.com/about/companyinfo/museum/exhibits

Play Your Heart Out: The Virtual Instrument Museum

A good percentage of us probably played an instrument, either willingly or under duress, as a child.  Some of you might still play in a band or as a hobby, or you might consider yourself a music connoisseur.  But do you have any idea how an idiophone works?  Or what a sarangi is and where it originated?  Neither did I, until a few minutes ago, when I visited the Virtual Instrument Museum.

The Virtual Instrument Museum is a digital archive of Wesleyan University's World Music Collection, and it's admirably thorough.  You can search for instruments by their different compositions (chordophone, aerophone, membranophone, and the above-mentoined idiophone), materials, region they come from, or alphabetically.  Besides defining all these musical terms, any of these search options brings up lists of instruments in each sub-category.  Instruments have their own pages of information, most of which include photos.  Some instruments have accompanying audio and video clips, and a select few include 3D images that you can rotate.  There's also an interactive map that allows you to view all the countries that have instruments in the archive.

That's about it - there's really no exhibits, and besides adding new instruments every so often, nothing seems to change.  But that's fine.  This is the type of collection that really benefits from an online presence, because it's rare and exciting.  How many people would trek up to Wesleyan to see musical instruments?  Not many (I'm not even sure where Wesleyan is).  But having images, information and sound files easily available can draw people in who might otherwise never see a collection of worldwide musical instruments.

I only hope that Wesleyan can create more 3D images and post them online.  They're really cool, and they're the next best thing to seeing the instruments in person.


Virtual Instrument Musuem
Website:  www.wesleyan.edu/vim/

China on My Mind: The China Online Museum

I know that I sometimes criticize virtual museums that don't have enough pop to them.  It's fun and engaging when you can do cool things in an online museum and feel at least somewhat like you're traveling through an exhibit.  But once in a while, it's nice just to be able to look at things and learn about their history.  That's the strength of the China Online Museum - although it's mainly a collection of images with information, the way it's organized and laid out makes it a valuable resource.

The China Online Museum lets you explore five different types of Chinese art:  bronzes, calligraphy, painting, ceramics and carving.  The history presented for these art forms goes back over 2,000 years, and in many cases Chinese characters are included alongside English spellings.  For each genre of art, you can learn about different artists, subjects, time periods or mediums.  Pages are set up with information at the top and images below - and in some cases, you can choose the amount of information you want to view (which is great for people who are easily overwhelmed).

The images themselves are very high-quality, and so even though there aren't many pictures to illustrate each style of art, the ones that are available serve the museum's content well.  I would rather have a limited number of good pictures than a smorgasbord of whatever a curator can scour from across the web.  I also like that images pop up on the screen when you click them, so that you can view them undistracted by other content.

The only thing I don't like about the China Online Museum is that there's not specific information for every image.  Only some of the pieces are identified with their time period and provenance, and very few have explanations of what is represented in the art.  Many of the images contain a source link, but these aren't always helpful either.

But other than this problem, the China Online Museum is wonderful.  I can't imagine that there are many other places online that have collected so many examples of Chinese art in one place and organized them into a coherent narrative.  Even if you're not an art fanatic, I would recommend at least browsing.  The images are beautiful, the information is plentiful, and the dedication behind this museum is inspiring.


Chine Online Museum
Mission:  To provide a general introduction to China and Chinese culture, with a strong emphasis on Chinese art.
Website:  www.chinaonlinemuseum.com

Jumping Across the Pond: The British Museum Online Tours

Someday, hopefully soon, I'll be able to visit the U.K.  I'd like to be able to visit Scotland and Ireland and see the English countryside, and of course I want to visit London.  I'm especially interested in seeing the British Museum and I imagine I'll be one of those people who spends a whole day just wandering through the galleries.  Until that day, though, I can satisfy my curiosity with the British Museum Online Tours.

I haven't seen another virtual museum or virtual collection from a physical museum that bills itself as a tour.  Usually these entities like to refer to their online portions as exhibits, probably because they're hoping a web-based platform can provide an interactive experience that at least partially simulates a real, self-guided visit.  That's not what the British Museum aims to do here - there are no 3D renderings, animations or audio accompaniments.  The Online Tours are simply collections of objects with accompanying text.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, because the wealth of images and information available online is astounding.  You can view hundreds of objects from civilizations across the globe, and also nose through the images from several exhibits that deal with the modern world.  The images are high quality and many include notes about whether they can be used in the public domain.  I imagine that these online tours are quite like what you might encounter if you took a docent's tour at the British Museum:  a lot of looking and listening, with a heaping dose of expert opinion.

But if you're looking for something extra - a chance to explore the objects on your own terms or question the curatorial viewpoint - you're not going to find that here.  There is much more that the British Museum could do with their online collections that they have chosen not to pursue.  Multi-angle viewing would be nice, as would a chance to ask questions or add comments.  Perhaps a more unified online presence would allow visitors to connect these cultures and their objects to understand our present-day interdependencies and understand just how the British Museum ended up holding onto a headdress from the Marquesas Islands.

Still, the fact that these objects are even available for me to view at home, 3,500 miles from London, is amazing.  Even if I never do get a chance to visit the U.K., I can see at least some of their collections in vivid detail.  For that I'm grateful, as are many others who only want to know what the curator thinks.  I just wonder what else the British Museum could do with their online tours if they cared to try.



The British Museum Online Tours
Website:  www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours.aspx

Colonists Online: Colonial Williamsburg Online Museum

I've been to Colonial Williamsburg twice in my life.  I don't remember the first time, because I was a little over a year old and I napped through the whole experience.  The second time was in the 8th grade, when I went as part of a school field trip, and I accidentally poked someone in the face with a stick that was supposed to be a musket.  I don't think I gathered too much knowledge during either trip (except for now understanding that muskets were sharp), but thanks to the exhibits Colonial Williamsburg has put online I can learn in the comfort of my own home.

Right now Colonial Williamsburg has four exhibits up online:  Historic Threads, Conserving the Murray Sisters, Coins and Currency in Colonial America, and Mapping Colonial America.  I was really excited about Historic Threads, because I love historical fashion, but this was the most disappointing of the exhibits.  Not because of the content - the images of gowns, suits and accessories are wonderful and are accompanied by great information about materials and time periods.  What was frustrating about Historic Threads was that it didn't work very well.  It's next to impossible to navigate between images - I would click the forward button and the previous image would stay on the screen, or the text would load but not its accompanying picture, or I would be left hanging in some kind of black limbo.  I found that the only way to get a screen to load properly was to refresh each page, which was so annoying that I gave up and moved on before I had seen half the exhibit.

Conserving the Murray Sisters takes on an interesting subject matter:  the scientific process of conserving artifacts.  Colonial Williamsburg was given a painting of these sisters dating from 1794, but it was too wrecked to display in its initial condition.  A series of images in this exhibit show the different steps conservationists took to restore the painting, including viewing it under different types of light.

Coins and Currency in Colonial America tries very hard to make a dull subject interesting by adding in a lot of features.  The coins are sorted by time period, from Columbus's travels to the end of the American Revolution, and are accompanied by notes on their history and metallurgy.  There are plenty of opportunities to seek out extra information and compare coins from the era, and you can even see a scale of each coin relative to a quarter.

Mapping Colonial America is probably the best online exhibit.  It's set up a lot like Coins and Currency, with maps arranged historically and information gathered in text boxes.  There's also a timeline running along the bottom that automatically sets itself to point at the time when each map was created.  The images of the maps have a great resolution - you can zoom in on each one and see a lot of detail.  On one map I was able to pinpoint the location of my hometown and still read the names of the surrounding villages and rivers.

Colonial Williamsburg's online exhibits are a great supplement to a visit and or an introduction for those who haven't been before.  Though some of the subject matter is a little dry, I would encourage you to check out all the functioning exhibits to see what you can glean from each.  As for Historic Threads, I really hope someone can get it to function better, because I need some sartorial escapism.

Colonial Williamsburg Online Museum Exhibits
Website:  www.history.org/history/museums/online_exhibits.cfm

Your Insides Out: The History of Visualization of Biological Macromolecules On-line Museum

Look at the title above.  Does it make any sense to you?  Probably not, unless you've got some college-level biology classes under your belt.  I had to read the opening page of this museum - and then re-read it to make sure I caught all the salient points, and then look at some of the images - before I understood what this museum is about.  This is kind of how the museum operates:  slightly confusing for the layman but full of pretty pictures.

Biological macromolecules are the larger molecules in our bodies, like proteins and the nucleic acids in our DNA.  Collected here are images and movies scientists in earlier generations produced in order to bring these macromolecules to a human scale.  The earliest images come from 1946 and were created in MIT laboratories.  There is also a 3D model of a protein, some pictures of crystals, and the cover of a 1966 molecule catalog (unfortunately, the link to flip through the catalog is no longer working).

The coolest section is the Early Molecular Graphics Movie Gallery, which shows films of protein and insulin molecules from 1966 and 1971.  They're on the primitive side, but it's interesting to see just what these structures look like.

Each section is accompanied by plenty of footnoted text, but it's not too user-friendly.  I suspect this was written with fellow scientists, not the general public, in mind.  That makes this museum frustrating, because with a more explanatory tone these images could provide a truly enlightening look inside our bodies.

So stop by and take a look, and try to glean what you can, but don't feel bad if it doesn't make sense to you.


History of Visualization of Biological Macromolecules On-line Museum
Mission:  This site is an on-line archive dedicated to the various tools and techniques that have been used by molecular scientists to visualize and study the structure of biological macromolecules.
Website:  www.umass.edu/molvis/francoeur/index.html

Wave of the Future: The Adobe Museum of Digital Media

So far a lot of the virtual museums I've seen can be classified as collections of super-informative web pages.  They're all great and tell some interesting stories, but none quite mimics the experience of a real museum visit.  None, that is, except the Adobe Museum of Digital Media.

Visiting Adobe's museum actually feels somewhat like walking through a museum building.  The museum and its exhibits are set up as a 3D structure that's highly interactive - for example, the exhibits are laid out in a floating, rotating formation that move toward your mouse as you scroll through.  There are even several exhibits whose content changes as you move among them.

Right now the museum has five exhibits plus a video by the museum's founder.  Each exhibit includes text and audio commentary from the curator and spaces where visitors can leave comments and share each piece in their social media networks.  The current exhibits are InForm, which displays colorful and random infographics; Journey to Seven Light Bay, a virtual tour of the artist Mariko Mori's work Primal Rhythm; Valley, a collection of digital art by the artist Tony Oursler; A + B = C, a video by Rhode Island School of Design's president on the intersection between real and virtual worlds; and Making the Impossible, which tells the story of how this museum came to be.  I really can't do these exhibits justice by describing them, so I'll let you explore them on your own.

The Adobe Museum of Digital Media is an ideal of what virtual museums can be, and what I imagine they will look like in the future.  I realize that this museum is made possible by Adobe's deep pockets, and that most of the virtual museums out there aren't nearly as well funded, but I think we can pick up some great cues here about how to bring museums online to the wider world.  Pay close attention and take notes, because this might just be the future of museums.


Adobe Museum of Digital Media
Mission:  The mission of the Adobe Museum of Digital Media is to showcase and preserve groundbreaking digital work and expert commentary to illustrate how digital media shapes and impacts today's society.
Website:  www.adobemuseum.com

A Thousand Words: The Canon Camera Museum

In real life, if you were to encounter a museum about a product, housed within the headquarters of that product's corporate parent, what would you think?  Would you find the information trustworthy, or would you be skeptical?  Would you expect a slick, expensive presentation or a nerd-tastic display of every minute specification?

These are all questions I asked myself while visiting the Canon Camera Museum, which is hosted on Canon's website.  I found that a company museum can be both interesting and selectively cheery, as well as shiny and new and a little too technologically detailed for the average camera user.

The museum is set up as a virtual space with five buildings, each hosting a different exhibit, surrounded by digital fields and pastures (which looked unfortunately similar to Farmville).  One building is simply a short introduction to the museum, and the other buildings house History Hall, Camera Hall, Technology Hall and Design Hall.

History Hall, like the historical narratives of a lot of virtual museums, features blocks of text arranged as a timeline.  You can read the digest form, which is long, or the full story, which is even longer and can't possibly appeal to anyone who isn't writing a research paper.  History Hall also contains a slick presentation on the history of the EOS cameras, and even though this exhibit reads like a sales pitch, its layout is quite interesting.  The main screen pans slowly back through images of the EOS line, showing what products looked like each year, which creates an interactive timeline that you can click on at various points for more information.  I wish this was how Canon has chosen to present the rest of their history.

Camera Hall is a pretty basic showcase of images and specifications of Canon's digital and analog cameras and camcorders.  There's not much to it, which is nice because it's easily accessible for those of us who don't know or care too much about mechanical specifics.

Technology Hall goes into great detail about how cameras are made and what the science is behind each product.  In the Technical Room you can see demos of how different camera parts work.  You can also view a Virtual Camcorder Plant and a Virtual Lens Plant, both of which feature videos showing the process of creating different products.  The Lens Plant video is especially good, like something you might find in a real museum exhibit, but they are both a little too upbeat and couched in an aura of marketing and promotion.

Design Hall was the most impenetrable exhibit in the museum.  I had no idea what most of the links meant, much less how to navigate through them, because they were full of technical jargon and product names that I was unfamiliar with.  I was all but ready to give up when I saw the Making of Camera Design section, which unfolds as an interactive video explaining the process of making and marketing cameras.  It was nice, in this sea of confusion, to sit back and have someone explain what camera design entails - someone who assumes you don't have a technical knowledge of cameras and lets you go at your own pace.

I suppose if you really like cameras, or if you desperately need a chunk of information on the Canon company, the Canon Camera Museum is for you.  The rest of us will have to settle for cherry-picking the sections that are understandable and not too dull.  And though I appreciate the Canon dollars that went in to making the unique design and the many interactive components of this museum, I can't help be a little turned off by the sunny corporate message on display.  All in all, the Canon Camera Museum is worth at least a glance, as long as you understand that not everything will appeal to you, and remember who's keeping the lights on.


The Canon Camera Museum
Mission:  The Canon Camera Museum is a virtual facility presenting a wealth of information on Canon cameras.  You'll learn things you can't learn elsewhere as we highlight the appealing features of Canon cameras.
Website:  www.canon.com/camera-museum

Patents and Prejudice: The Black Inventor Online Museum

I can tell you when Black History Month rolls around (it's March) because we celebrated it every year when I was in elementary and middle school.  My teachers always put up illustrations of notable black Americans, and I learned a lot about George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois.  There were other important people we learned about - usually though assigned reports we had to present - but the details of their accomplishments are sketchy in my mind.  I know that a black doctor invented the modern blood bank, and that traffic lights were the creation of a black man, but just who these men were escapes me.  Thanks to the Black Inventor Online Museum, I can learn more about these inventors, as well as many others who made devices we now take for granted.

The Black Inventor Online Museum is, simply, a collection of biographies interspersed with photographs and other images of these famous creators.  In this regard, the Black Inventor Online Museum isn't terribly innovative, but it makes up for this in the wealth of information it provides.  The museum spans most of black history in America:  from Benjamin Banneker's work planning out the nation's capital for George Washington, to IBM engineer Mark Dean.  The biographies are highly detailed, and most include either an image or a technical drawing of each inventor's work.

Using the helpful search page, I was quickly able to learn that Charles Drew was the doctor who discovered how to store blood for long-term use, and Garret Morgan patented the modern traffic signal.  I also learned that black Americans invented the mailbox, the raised golf tee and the beer keg tap. 

The only problem I have with the Black Inventor Online Museum is that, at times, it seems to be a swamp of advertisements.  Besides having Google ads on every page, there are also ads in the middle of each biography, and on some pages there are links to related books on Amazon.  I understand that online museums may need to generate revenue to ensure their survival, but having ads all over the place is distracting.

Don't let this deter you, though, because the Black Inventor Online Museum is a great place.  Whether you're a student who needs some inspiration for your Black History Month project, or an adult who just want to know more about where our modern conveniences come from, this museum is highly informative.  You'll leave having learned something you, and feeling thankful that someone more intelligent than yourself had the foresight to invent the third rail.

Black Inventor Online Museum

Mission:  The Black Inventor Online Museum is a look at the great and often unrecognized pioneers in the field of invention and innovation.

Website:  www.blackinventor.com

Computers, Not Fruit: The Apple Museum

I was all prepared not to like the Apple Museum.  After all, I'm not a computer geek - my eyes glaze over every time one of my technophilic friends starts talking about coding or trying to explain the new features on their iPhone.  So imagine my surprise as I was working my way through the Apple Museum and thinking, You know, this is actually kind of interesting.

The cool parts of the Apple Museum are the sections on Apple Facts, Codenames and Prototypes.  Apple Facts explains things like why the company was named Apple, where the Apple logo came from and what Carl Sagan has to do with Macs.  Codenames gives a pretty detailed list of what products were called internally as they were being developed (although, frustratingly, the origin of these names isn't explained).  Prototypes is my favorite part of this museum, because it includes pictures and descriptions of Apple products that were developed but never caught on in the market.  Who knew that Apple once tried to market a screen-based portable phone called W.A.L.T., or that there was a computer called Stumpy?

There's also a comprehensive Apple Data section, and although this part made no sense to me, it has a lot of detail on a lot of products, so I'm sure more computer-minded people would find it useful.  There are also biographies of four of Apple's founders and early developers - Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Rod Holt and Jef Raskin - which are nice additions to the website, but I suspect that you could find a lot more information on Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, amid this wealth of information, there are some problems.  The Products section of the website is completely empty, and the in the Timelines section only three of the five links actually work (and these are just data dumps of dates and products).  There is also a History section which could have a lot of potential, if only it weren't laid out in a Cliff Notes-style outline.  The text in the museum is also a little hard to work through because it's just not well-written.

If you can ignore these frustrations and just focus on the good parts, the Apple Museum really is quirky, informative and surprisingly fun.  If you love computers, this museum is for you - and even if you don't, I would recommend at least browsing.  You may find yourself, like me, beginning to reconsider that maybe computers aren't so nerdy after all.

The Apple Museum
Mission:  The Apple Museum of a non-commercial project, founded in 1998.  With our continuously growing database, we have become the largest and most comprehensive Apple history website on the internet.
Website:  www.theapplemuseum.com

Our Path to Education: The American Association of University Women Online Museum

Right now in the United States, women make up 57% of enrolled undergraduate college students.  Feminists and other advocates for women's education rightly applaud this achievement, but how did it come to be less than a century after women received the right to vote?  You can find some answers to this question at the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Online Museum.

The AAUW, which was founded in 1881, works to provide equity for women in all areas of life, especially education.  Their actions during the past 130 years are spelled out in great detail in Our History, interspersed with many good-quality images.  There's a lot of good information in this section, but the way it's presented - as a series of timelines to scroll through - is not the most appealing.

Three other sections - Advocacy and Action; Scholarship and Support; and Research and Publications - also speak to the organization's history and are presented in similar formats (though Research and Publications goes beyond this static layout by letting you download some of AAUW's early, out-of-print literature).  Combining these galleries with the Our History section to make one all-encompassing interactive exhibit would make for a much more comprehensive and interesting historical portrait.

There's also the Portrait Gallery of famous AAUW members and the Outlook Gallery, which features images of past issues of the organization's journal.  The Portrait Gallery is worth checking out to see who has been a member of AAUW, but I wish there was more information on these women's accomplishments.  The Outlook Gallery isn't very helpful at all because it only shows AAUW Outlook covers.  It would be much more useful to be able to look inside the magazine, or at least read some of the articles.

By far the most interesting section in the museum is the Buildings Gallery, which showcases the past and present headquarters of the AAUW.  You can view artifacts and images of different rooms in these buildings, and you can even take a Flash tour of the organization's first headquarters.

This last exhibit is the kind of presentation that would most benefit the wealth of information presented here.  There's so much history and literature contained in the AAUW's existence that it needs to be synthesized and presented in an engaging way that's more accessible and less like a textbook.  I have high hopes that this organization, which has thrived for well over a century, can spruce up its virtual museum and become more visitor-friendly.


The American Association of University Women Online Museum
Mission:  Through the AAUW Online Museum, AAUW is pleased to share our rich history as a leader in promoting equity for women and girls for more than 125 years.
Website:  svc.aauw.org/museum

Sink-sational: The Online Titanic Museum

If you're like me, you're excited for next year's 3D re-release of James Cameron's Titanic (not because the movie is any good, but because I want to see that ship crack in half in lifelike detail).  The movie premiers in just five months, so in the meantime you may want to brush up on your Titanic history.  For a shallow immersion into this ship's iconography, check out the Online Titanic Museum.

Built around a private collection of Titanic memorabilia, this museum features four exhibits of objects.  The Unsinkable Titanic shows advertisements for the ship and images of some of its furnishings.  Disaster Strikes is a gallery of newspaper articles and postmortem commemorative books and sheet music (and you can even listen to some snippets of song).  White Star Line displays artifacts with the White Star Line insignia, which were on board the Titanic and its sister ships Olympic and Brittanic.  Finally, the gallery simply named Related Items is a mishmash of images that couldn't be slotted in elsewhere.

The images are of pretty good quality, and there is plenty of information given for each object.  I was also impressed that this museum decided to display not just historical photographs and newspapers, but also White Star Line promotional materials and artifacts recovered from the ship.  These really help in conveying the excitement surrounding Titanic's maiden voyage, and show how passengers were living on board the ship in the days and hours before it sank.

I'm a little disappointed, however, that there's not more information on how this museum came to be.  The museum's home page states that it's built from a personal collection, but whose collection is it?  Does it belong to an institution or an individual?  Why did this person or place start collecting, and what is their interest in Titanic history?  Knowing these things would help to better evaluate how trustworthy the objects and their interpretations are, yet this information is unavailable.

Still, it is interesting to be able to look at chair slats and upholstery and White Star Line china that are almost a hundred years old and have (in some cases) been sitting on the bottom of the ocean for a few decades.  I'm sure most of us approach the history of the Titanic with more than a little morbid curiosity.  This museum - featuring furniture and postcards that were handled by people who didn't know they would be dead in a matter of days - helps satisfy that curiosity.

The Online Titanic Museum
Mission:  The online Titanic Museum is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Titanic; her twin sisters Olympic and Brittanic and the White Star Line - the shipping line that owned and operated the three "Olympic Class" steamers.
Website:  www.onlinetitanicmuseum.com

Art Without End: Olga's Gallery

Have you ever had a painting spring to mind that you know you learned about somewhere, but now you can't remember what it's called or who created it?  You can only recall a few details - it was from the Rococo period and there was a slipper and a swing involved - and it's driving you crazy.  But there's an easy way to solve this dilemma:  visit Olga's Gallery, type in a few keywords, and soon you'll find out that you're thinking of is The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

Olga's Gallery claims to be one of the largest online art collections, and it's probably true.  You can search for pieces by artist, movement or country of origin.  You can even do a search by subject - so if you wanted to look up Prince Albert, you could find portraits by both British and German artists.  Olga's Gallery also provides a helpful index of which pieces are recent additions to the gallery.


But this museum is more than just images - it provides a wealth of information about each artist and most of their works.  Besides listing the year, medium, size and location of each image, Olga's Gallery also includes a detailed description of subject matter of many pieces.  And if you're confused about what is being referred to, just hop back to the homepage.  There you can find sections that explain Greek and Roman myths, stories about the saints, notes about the Bible and other religious traditions, and summaries of literature from around the world.  And if you want to delve even deeper into art history, you can read the archived newsletters that Olga's Gallery used to send out.

With so many images and resources available at your fingertips, Olga's Gallery would seem to be an art lover's paradise.  I do appreciate having so much information and history all in one place, but the website is marred by tons of ads.  There are Google ads off the side and embedded in the text; there are huge block ads that you have to scroll past to see the pieces; and there are those devilish pop-under ads that spring up every so often.  Be prepared with deal with these annoyances before you visit.


But do visit.  There's so much available to look at and learn, and you could spend hours jumping from one subject or artist to the next.  Sure, it's grating to find ads everywhere, but if that's the price to pay for having thousands of years of art right in from of you, so be it.


Olga's Gallery
Website:  www.abcgallery.com