Hi Bayla:
 
          With regard to library catalogs discouraging physical
          visits: first, I have no real expertise in this; second, the
          NY Botanical Garden's on-line library catalog has a
          wonderful "browse" approach, in that it will show you the
          stuff *next* to the stuff your looking for. Kind of a
          virtual stack.
 
          I only mention this because one of the great pleasures of a
          musuem visit is looking at things that you didn't expect to
          see or be interested in. In my recent visit to the Natural
          History Museum in NY, I made a beeline for the fossil mammal
          exhibit; after an hour or so there, I happened to wander
          through a wonderful exhibit on Genghis Khan and the Mongols
          (I don't think that I saw the word "horde" in the whole
          exhibit." But I did see a yurt, very nice one at that).
 
          On line wandering is one of the great pleasures of the
          Internet as well, which is why Mosaic is so much fun (even
          if it is like wandering through a tar pit in terms of
          speed). Won't it be wonderful when on-line visits to museum
          collections and images will allow you to connect instantly
          to other museums collections, so you can see all of Piero
          Della Francesca's digitized images at one go.
 
          As far as that goes, what about digital enhancement of
          images. I wouldn't mind a cyber visit to those old wrecks of
          frescoes at Arezzo or somewhere cleaned up with digital
          enhancement technology. Given the controversy over real
          re-touching and the like, maybe this is the way to go.
 
          On and on.
 
          Best Regards
 
          Eric