Hi!  I, too am not a museum professional (though I work at the Institute
for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University designing educational
software, some of which is used in museums and other public locations).  I
always look at the web sites of museums of any city to which I'm
travelling.  It inevitably piques my interest in the place.  I've also
found myself returning to those pages after I've seen an exhibit to show
someone else an image I especially enjoyed or to look again myself (the
virtual equivalent of buying a postcard of the painting or sculpture I most
enjoyed).  One thing I'd like to see more of on web pages is extensive
historical analysis and biographical information on the artists.  It seems
the ideal medium for that kind of info -- I can print it out and take it
with me to the museum or I can just read it from my office.  I sometimes
get museumed out and having the chance to revisit a work in depth without
having to collect brochures would be really valuable (though I have nothing
against a really well done brochure or exhibit guide).  The idea of being
able to view groups of works in different ways to highlight some
charateristic they share or exemplify would be interesting too.  For e.g.,
works that are in different rooms in the actual museum could sit on the
same page if they all represented the influence of religion in folk art.
It would also be possible to graphically manipulate works to more clearly
illustrate lines of perspective, etc. (I'm envisioning something akin to
the "animations" in Microsoft's Art Gallery cd-rom) or you could
superimpose two works to show the changes from preliminary sketch to actual
painted work.  And if you're going through all that effort to have a really
rich web page, how about making it available to people at kiosks while
they're in the museum?

Just some suggestions!

Carolyn Majkowski
Content Analyst
Institute for the Learning Science
Northwestern University
1890 Maple Avenue
Evanston, IL  60201
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