Use of WWW and other electronic media to encourage visitation strikes me as
vital to the visitor dependent museum community, and is something that is
currently achievable.
 
Goal would be creating media that could be distributed free (Internet) or at low
or no cost: e.g. a CDROM project that would make first time visitors as
sophisticated as second time visitors. At Mystic Seaport, frequent comments were
that people did not realize how much was there and that they only had time to
see a portiion ofthe Seaport. Brochures inviting you to spend all day with a few
color photos did not do it; The information presented at the Visitor Reception
center helped. But this information should be available to the visitor deciding
on Thursday how to spend the day.
 
As CDROM devices (does anyone else remember sitting in industry sessions 7 or 8
years ago agonizing about the chicken/egg problem w. CDROM) proliferate, what
about a (some) (several) regional projects to put together a CDROM series about
museum offerings in a region, state, on a topic, or for the single large
regional museum? Publish as a series seasonally? Is there a part of AAM
concerned w. raising the level of the water in the pond? Would a project like
this qualify for the Oracle grant? Part of this work has likely been done as
some museums have produced promotional/souvenir videos ( which probably should
have been given away instead of sold at gift shops!)
 
Benj. Fuller
(past dozen years curator of Mystic Seaport Museum and currently maritime museum
and computer ronin as seabag enterprises)