In this connection, may I bring to List Members notice the COLDITZ Home Page at 
http://www.cimttz.tu-chemnitz.de/colditz

This Home Page has undoubtedly economically benefitted both the town and its museum and provides an example that may prove useful to any small museum/small town with a limited budget.

Two and a half years ago Jens Mahlmann, then curator of the Colditz Museum in Saxony, Hermann Foerster of the University of Chemnitz and I (son of a former Allied Prisoner of War in Colditz) set about creating an internet site for the Museum, the Castle and the town which we called "Colditz Gateway to Saxony". This was done a voluntary basis, with the University of Chemnitz acting as Host, and with the full backing of the town.

We set out with very specific aims to attract visitors to the town of Colditz (population 6,000) because, without visitors staying in the town, both the town and the museum would eventually die. (The former East Germany has very serious unemployment).
These visitors might know the name Colditz from films or books but they most certainly would not know where the town was or what there was to be seen there or in the neighbourhood. Centrepiece of the Colditz Home Page was a virtual tour of the town, the castle and the museum. We also provided information about how to get to the town from the three major cities nearby - Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz. We provided information about where to stay. We provided links to other key sites in Saxony so that (a) web visitors would discover how much else there was to see in Saxony and (b) so that they might be persuaded to use Colditz as a touring base from which, when they later came to visit the town for real, they might tour Saxony. We also added a visitors' book to enable contact to be made with web visitors.

The Colditz Home Page has had nearly 25,000 visits so far. But the real success has been is in encouraging individuals, who might not have otherwise have done so, to visit the town. It will be appreciated that Also the Home Page has raised the profile of the town within Saxony and made it easier to persuade the Saxon Authorities to fund a staged restoration of the Castle. There are lessons I feel here for any small museum in a small local community - a web page can make a real difference to not only to the number of visitors but to their quality. 

A surprising number of people signing the Colditz visitors book are the descendants of people who emigrated from the town to USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand seeking to get in touch with their Saxon roots. So we have a page of links that takes them to various genealogy sites in Saxony. Since Saxony still has a number of narrow gauge steam railways, we point people to these as well. The point I am making is that if you create a site, you have to persuade people to bookmark it and come back again. You are most likely to be able to do this if you assume you web page visitors have wide interests and include links to a variety of interesting sites in the region. The advantage of this is that these other sites then return the compliment.

I have prepared a three page WORD document outlining the background to the COLDITZ Home Page and if any members of the list care to write to me by e-mail I will send them a copy.

Antony Anderson
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
[log in to unmask]
Colditz Gateway to Saxony
http://www.cimttz.tu-chemnitz.de/colditz
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From:   Katie Edlebeck[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   15 September 1998 16:59
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Positive economic implications for museums on the web

If your museum is not utilizing the web for fear of revenue decreases,
you may want to rethink your strategy.  How many people have decided not
to go to the Louvre to see a picture of the Mona Lisa because someone
has a copy in their living room?
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