Date:         Mon, 6 Feb 1995 12:07:43 -0800
   From: Douglas Greenberg <[log in to unmask]>
 
     [Eric Siegal's comments that started this out elided for space.
      Basically, the real thing is good]
 
   I think that Eric's general point is certainly true: ain't nothing like
   the real thing.  The issue that museums should be addressing with the
   new technologies, it seems to me, is how to reach people who cannot or
   do not have access to the real thing and who do not need it at least in
   the short term.
This is one reason. Another, to quote a recent movie title, "Reality
Sucks".  A challenge is to think how we can use technology to augment
reality, in cases when reality isn't really very good. Three areas come
immediately to mind: explanation, display constraints for books, and
paths through exhibitions.
 
Explaining exhibitions is really tricky in reality, and some of that
trickyness is due to the available media. We are forced in a fixed
media (little labels, or maybe the few people who lug the exhibit
catalog around with them) to try and accomidate a wide range of
information desires in visitors. If a person wants to know more (or less) the
existing technology provides no easy solutions. Similarly with the little
audio cassettes that accompany some exhibitions, I always want to know
more about something not covered, and often don't want to go in the
order forced on me, which touches both on explaination and path.
 
A way to think about path is arranging presentation order. In reality
it is hard to apply computation on peoples choices. If you spend time
looking at pictures from artists A, B, and C, it may be very
reasonable to suggest looking at artist Q, and in a virual museum this
becomes possible (I'm not suggesting this is easy, or is generally
possible, but especially I think with historical collections it's
worth experimenting with).
 
I won't say in hypertext this is easy, but it is possible. It is possible
to give an experience that last from minutes to hours, including having
access to the materials that were eliminated due to physical space constraints
of museums. It always depresses me, when I go to South St. Seaport, and
you can only see the one page that the whaling logbook that you can allow
people to see. One could digitize the entire book, and without further
harm to the artifact allow us to view the entire voyage. A logbook,
is an artifact that doesn't present well in PPR (physically proximate
reality) but can in a virual museum.
 
It is my belief that Virtual Museums will have both strengths and
weaknesses in contrast to Real(tm) Museums.
 
Mark Rosenstein
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