In response to my curiosity to find out about Museum/WWW lists, the
issue of WWW access has arisen. This seems very pertinent as museums
need to think about our service mission before we all start jumping
on the WWW Wagon (W4?), and service includes the issue of access.
 
I am just beginning to think about developing an information server
for the Art Museum at Berkeley, but so far I think WWW is the way to
go. Here's why:
 
ACCESS ISSUES
* as was pointed out in another message, there are ascii readers for
WWW sites; Lynx being the most well-known.
* even if your sys/admin won't install lynx, some WWW server software
has recently incorporated the ability to deliver ascii as well as
HTTP versions of WWW sites, putting the burden on the site instead
of the reader. I don't know if they are using this technology specifically,
but one truly well-done WWW site, The UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
(sorry, I know they're on my campus, but they did win Best of the Net!)
has a page specifically for imageless clients. Check out URL -
http://ucmp1.berkeley.edu/welcome.html
* I recently heard that the new version of Gopher also includes the
ability to read from WWW sites and translate to text on the fly. (correct me
if my details are wrong, but the idea is that HTTP and Ascii readers are
overlapping more and more).
* Even Mosaic is not that hard to get sometimes; one could get a SLIP/PPP
account (also mentioned previously) and even America Online is going to
mount Mosaic for it's users soon.
 
APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY
* In my mind, what Gopher did for libraries (among countless other
institutions!), WWW will do for Museums. Libraries and Museums often
overlap in being publicly oriented institutions with a strong public
service mission, and yet often very little funds. So there is the impetus
to deliver information in as many forums as possible, including the
Internet, albeit cheaply.
Gopher offered a great way to deliver textual information (of which libraries
are rich) in a relatively inexpensive way. I have seen many libraries come
onto the net because of these reasons. I know museums vary a lot, but are
usually object-rich rather than emphasizing their textual resources. (I
count
manuscripts among objects rather than text as the object is key, not just
the content of the text). As far as I have yet seen, WWW offers the widest and
least expensive distribution forum for electronic forms of object and
image-rich resources.
 
Anyway, I don't own stock in any of the new WWW reader commercial spin-offs :-),
so this is not meant to be too evangelical, but these reasons are leading
my thinking in developing an informaation server at my own museum. I'd
love to hear feedback on any related topics, as it could help clarify my
thinking before I spend the time on it; and this is what this list is all
about!
 
 
>In article <[log in to unmask]>, Robert Guralnick
><[log in to unmask]> writes:
>
>Unfortunately, people who have access to and use the Web seem to have
>little sense of how unaccessible it is to many internet users.  Right now
>it would seem to be a fairly poor place to locate information that is
>meant to be available universally.
>
>On the other hand, placing important information just out of reach might
>make the impetus to get at it all the more stronger.
>
>On the other hand, if I can't get at it, it probobably ain't worth having
>anyway!
>
>Robt (who has four internet addresses and no WWW access).
 
 
Richard Rinehart
Information Systems Manager
University Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive
University of California at Berkeley
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