Sunday Listers,

Despite the gloriously sunny day in Southern California, I've opted to do
some work on my MuseumStuff.com site today. - (Really, I'm trying to avoid
doing some serious garage cleaning!)

Finding myself in a ponderous mood regarding the educational mission that
is an important componant of most museum-ish organizations. - As many of
you are aware, one of the goals of my site is to satisfy the public's need
for authoratative information on a variety of topics through resources made
available by museums. - Millions of inquiring minds out there .. a
gazillion websites they can turn to. - I think museums should be getting
more than their fair share of the pie.

Which brings me to my questions. - What is the level of interest in museums
in extending their educational mission to the online world? - There has
been some recent discussion on this list regarding online exhibits and some
the advantages  and disadvantages in these for museums .. These discussions
were largely focused on the value in generating real-world traffic to
museums .. but what of the simple value in providing educational
information to the public. - Does the educational mission have some
geographic limit? .. Is there more value in educating only those who visit
museums, or is the educational benefit derived by an individual 6,000 miles
away equally valid?

My questions are open-ended and intentionally vague .. Obviously there are
many issues here that I'm not even bringing up. - Hoping for some
interesting and honest input from "the trenches".

Well, enough procrastination. - Time to clean up my archaeological pit of a
garage ..

Roy Hemmat
[log in to unmask]
http://www.museumstuff.com

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