I feel very strongly that a web site should have significant educational
content.
Think about this...
If you were 'surfing' the web and decided to visit the Louvre web site,
what would you want to see?
-advertisements?
-directions to the museum?
-artwork and historical information?
Our mission is to acquire, conserve, and interpret (a boiled down summary
of our mission). The web extends our capabilities.
I have never been to the Louvre, but I have experienced their web site. If
I am ever in Paris, I will visit the Louvre. My visit to their web site
has NOT diminished that urge.
We just opened a new traveling exhibit "Cats! Wild to Mild". The exhibit
is expected to travel for 5 to 10 years. We designed a companion web site
that includes ALL of the material from the exhibit and a bit more. It
includes the panels, interactives and the entire teacher's curriculum
(available for download). The web site serves to advertise the physical
exhibit (after all, the physical exhibit includes three dimensional objects
such as taxidermied specimens of rare and exotic cats and many other
special effects) and it provides the same 'content' to people who may never
have the opportunity to visit the exhibit.
I feel that the best advertisement for an exhibit is a quality web site
packed with information, some of which supplements an actual visit
(teacher's curriculum, more in depth coverage of topics, bibliography) and
some of which extends and builds on the concepts touched on in the exhibit.
Our web site has already garnered significant interest and I expect it to
do even more once the final version is up and I begin to 'market' it.
You can visit our exhibits companion site at http://www.nhm.org/cats (a
new version will be uploaded within the month, however, it won't differ
much).
By the way, I am opposed to including 'advertisements' from sponsors in the
educational parts of a web exhibit. I am happy to provide links to
sponsors from an introductory page, but once into the exhibit, the most
I'll offer is a foot note that the page was made possible by the sponsor.
Jim -webmaster NHM
>I am working on a web page to a museum exhibit and I wanted to know what
> people expect from a web
>page. I think that the page should have educational content with some
>advertisements. Others think that it should just be a commercial. What does
>the audience want?
>Do they want educational information, advertisements, both?
>
>The web page is partly supposed to act as an advertisement for people to come
>see the exhibit, but I think there should be more to it than that. What do you
>think?
>Thanks in advance
>Heidi
>
>
>Heidi L. Anderson
>The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Collections Assistant
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Jim Angus
New Media
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
900 Exposition Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90007
http://www.nhm.org
voice: 213/744-3317
fax: 213/746-2999
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