Museum Domain Management Association - MuseDoma

www.musedoma.org

For immediate release - November 20, 2000

Press Contacts:

Jean Miao
Assoc. Communications Specialist
The J. Paul Getty Trust
+1 310 440 6617
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Valerie Jullien
Communications Officer
International Council of Museums
+33 1 4568 2836
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DOT-MUSEUM (.museum) NAMED AS ONE OF SEVEN WINNERS IN EXPANSION
OF INTERNET DOMAIN NAMES

General public to benefit from unified museum presence on
Internet

Los Angeles-The Museum Domain Management Association (MuseDoma)
has announced the approval of its proposal to establish .museum
as a restricted top-level domain name on the Internet. The
approval was made by the board of directors of the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit
organization that provides oversight for domain names. MuseDoma's
plan will give museums the possibility of registering Internet
addresses with a dot-museum suffix and will allow Internet users
to recognize this as a sign of authenticity, ensuring that
sources of information about cultural and scientific heritage are
verifiable.

"We're very pleased about ICANN's selection of dot-museum as a
new domain name," stated Cary Karp, president of MuseDoma and
director of the Department of Information Technology at the
Swedish Museum of Natural History. "Dot-museum will provide a
platform for facilitating and encouraging all of the varied and
unique activities that are part of a museum's mission. Its
existence will benefit the public, as well as professional
audiences that seek online communication and education. We look
forward to working with ICANN in the final steps of having
.museum in operation within the next year."

MuseDoma is a newly formed nonprofit trade association created to
obtain, maintain, and operate a restricted, top-level domain for
and in the best interests of the worldwide museum community. It
was founded by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and
the J. Paul Getty Trust and will have an open membership. The
.museum domain will be restricted, with eligibility limited to
museums and their professional organizations based on ICOM's
definition of a museum, which continues to be discussed and
modified as the museum field evolves.

ICOM is a non-governmental organization established in 1946 with
over 16,000 members. It defines a museum as "a nonprofit-making,
permanent institution in the service of society and of its
development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves,
researches, communicates, and exhibits, for purposes of study,
education, and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their
environment."

The J. Paul Getty Trust-in addition to operating the Getty
Museum, Research Institute, and Conservation Institute-plays a
philanthropic role for museums around the world and serves the
professional field in many ways, including through the Getty
Leadership Institute.

Since submitting its application in October 2000, MuseDoma's
dot-museum proposal has received overwhelmingly positive support
from museums, both large and small, from around the world through
ICANN's online public comment forum.

"MuseDoma applauds ICANN's vision and courage in the decisions it
has made and knows that this shared domain will help museums
coalesce their efforts on the World Wide Web," stated Kenneth
Hamma, director of MuseDoma and assistant director of the J. Paul
Getty Museum. "It will be of special benefit to museums that have
yet to establish themselves online. A shared domain identity is
precisely what is needed."

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