Lynne,

A colleague directed me to the following artlice as I began looking
into the questions of museum websites and the impact on visitor numbers.
The article suggests that websites and virtual collections actually
enhance numbers...hope this helps!

Kravchyna, V. & Hastings, S. (2002). Informational Value of Museum Web

Sites. First Monday, 7 (2),
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_2/kravchyna/index.html


Best,
Jennifer



Jennifer Lemmer
Tibbals Collection Manager
Ringling Museum of the Circus
Sarasota, Florida

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>>> [log in to unmask] 3/12/2004 6:29:49 PM >>>
    Our small local-history museum is fortunate to have a
local-library
director who is as passionate about local history as we are -- and he
is
better funded. He introduced me to a gentleman whose business
digitizes
newspapers, books, etc. for libraries and collectors and who the
director
would like to have digitize some of our papers. The library has had a
business relationship with him for many years. I saw examples of his
work
and was very impressed. He also works with some significant
institutions
that have used him for other projects and have contracted with him for
additional work.
    The digital files will be searchable and will be available on the
library's Web site. The library did something similar with a weighty
tome
that covers the entire history of our town and it has been a great boon
to
researchers and to us/me (fewer demands on my time).
     We have one large volume of a years' worth of a rare 1886
newspaper
that apparently exists nowhere else, including at the state archives.
The
first few pages are extremely fragile, but the rest is not too bad.
That is
the first collection that will be digitized and I was very relieved
when the
digitizer said he doesn't need to unbind the newspapers in order to
convert
them. However, he is apparently accustomed to dealing with more recent
newspapers and I gasped when he flipped open the cover of the volume
and
started turning pages as though it was yesterday's daily paper. As a
confetti of old paper rained down at his feet, it became apparent to
him --
and to me -- that he needed instruction in dealing with very old paper.
We
agreed, then, that I would bring the bound volume to him and will offer
some
guidance to the photographers, who are also unaccustomed to such old
newspapers.
     I would like, then, to ask the members of this list for
additional
advice before I bring the papers to them next week. I will bring
cotton
gloves for all of us and I will recite my litany of the things that
damage
old paper. I thought of creating some sort of page support (of a couple
of
sheets of Mylar taped together with something slim but rigid sandwiched
in
the middle?) to slip under each page, to facilitate lifting and turning
it.
Can anyone else offer suggestions for what I should ask of them?
    The other broader question arose when I told our historian of what
we
are doing and he scowled and replied "No one is going to come into the
museum if you have all this online." I realize that this is an ongoing
debate today, but I am curious as to whether other list members have a
sense
of whether extensive Internet resources have a depressing effect on
the
number of visitors to their museum -- or whether they encourage
attendance.
Lynne

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