I am with a regional natural science museum debating whether we should
create a homepage on the Web. I read the following posting from Gisborne Museum.
>As long as people have the capacity and imagination to wonder about the past
>and about other people, other places, etc, I believe museums will provide an
>important link - via the "real things".
>
>Web sites can certainly have the potential to encourage people to want to go
>and visit museums, but a visit to a Web site cannot and never can be the
>same as seeing (possibly touching) the real thing in the same way as a CD
>Rom is unlikely to replace the library book or pictures of elephants won't
>(hopefully!) replace seeing the gigantic real thing.
>
An art museum has the "real thing". But in many ways, a natural science
museum is currently a "virtual" museum. Artifacts, dioramas, exhibits are
all "virtual" representations concerning the miracle of nature surrounding
our museum walls. So maybe the Internet, for natural science museums, could
be quite the opposite of "object-centered" musuems. Perhaps we can use
homepages to get people to go out into their backyards, to the park, to look
with deeper awareness at some common, seasonal phenomenon. Save the people a
trip to the museum; eliminate the middleman of exhibitry.

Paul Krapfel, Education Coordinator
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