>> I think it would be particularly
>>interesting to debate what is the >main consideration in deciding to
>>prepare programs for the Internet - public access?  >museum profile?
>>publicity?  education?
We have two small museums in Muncie, Indiana.  Our main purpose for putting
up a sight is to let more people know about the resources we have to offer.
The Delaware County Historical Allaince has a library and writes 2
publications.  We have been in existance for (more or less) thirty odd years
and we have people every day who have never heard of us.

>
>I would be delighted too to hear how other Museums develop their web sites
>as we are in the process of re-making our (one year old site) at the
>moment.
>Are webmasters are using commercial vendors for this purpose or working
>in-house for example.

The person who is constructing our site will also be training me (the Admin.
Asst.) on how to update the page.  So I will in a sense be the webmaster.
Our pages will not be too involved, but a nice addition to the web.  You can
take a look at the construction at:
http://www.iquest.net/~gothicpoet/temp/
Like I said, we are a small site.

>Once the content has been more or less agreed upon we will be able to turn
>other issues such as target audiences, educational versus commercial, which
>language or languages to provide information (our museum provides labels in
>English, Hebrew and Arabic) and the hardest issue of all, how much leeway
>do we allow our visitors to answer us .... this is a most delicate problem
>as we dont have the manpower to answer the pottential flood of inquiries on
>all of our collections.

We don't really anticipate a large volume of mail, but we are training a
couple of volunteers to handle mail on a couple of days a week.
Thanks for this discussion, I know I have lots of questions!

Angi Weiss
Administrative Assistant
Delaware County Historical Alliance

*************************************************************
The Delaware County Historical Alliance
P.O. Box 1266, Muncie, IN  47308-1266
(317) 282-1550, (317) 282-1058 (fax)

Office open Monday - Friday, 9 - 4
*Moore-Youse Home Museum, 122 E. Washington, Muncie
        open Wednesday through Sunday 1 - 4
*Heritage Library, 120 E. Washington, Muncie,
        open Monday and Tuesday 10 - 4, Saturday 10 - 1
*Emily Kimbrough Childhood Home Museum, open by appointment