The Centennial Museum is heavily into web extensions of our educational mission. Included are web presentations, expanded with images and resource materials, of our daily public radio presentations <http://www.utep.edu/museum/desertdiary/>; our website on the natural history of the Chihuahuan Desert <http://nasa.utep.edu/chih/chihdes.htm>; our Chihuahuan Desert native plant website <http://spark.nasa.utep.edu/~gardens/>; and a number of resources such as checklists of animals and fossils on our Laboratory for Environmental Biology website <http://www.utep.edu/leb/>. All of these sites expand far beyond the museum exhibits and are intended as educational resources. Art Harris -----Original Message----- From: Roy Hemmat To: [log in to unmask] Sent: 1/13/2002 12:09 PM Subject: Educational Mission Extended Online Sunday Listers, Despite the gloriously sunny day in Southern California, I've opted to do some work on my MuseumStuff.com site today. - (Really, I'm trying to avoid doing some serious garage cleaning!) Finding myself in a ponderous mood regarding the educational mission that is an important componant of most museum-ish organizations. - As many of you are aware, one of the goals of my site is to satisfy the public's need for authoratative information on a variety of topics through resources made available by museums. - Millions of inquiring minds out there .. a gazillion websites they can turn to. - I think museums should be getting more than their fair share of the pie. Which brings me to my questions. - What is the level of interest in museums in extending their educational mission to the online world? - There has been some recent discussion on this list regarding online exhibits and some the advantages and disadvantages in these for museums .. These discussions were largely focused on the value in generating real-world traffic to museums .. but what of the simple value in providing educational information to the public. - Does the educational mission have some geographic limit? .. Is there more value in educating only those who visit museums, or is the educational benefit derived by an individual 6,000 miles away equally valid? My questions are open-ended and intentionally vague .. Obviously there are many issues here that I'm not even bringing up. - Hoping for some interesting and honest input from "the trenches". Well, enough procrastination. - Time to clean up my archaeological pit of a garage .. Roy Hemmat [log in to unmask] http://www.museumstuff.com ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).