Dear Peter, I have done some research on museums' use of technology as part of my MA in museum professions. I became interested in how curators are being forced to adapt to an art world where collections are becoming more easily accessible through the internet and their duties are extending outside the walls of physical museums and into cyberspace. In general, almost all larger museums have very interactive websites where visitors can search through the collections and even create small "virtual galleries" or collections of their favorite artworks that can share with other visitors to the website. Some of these virtual galleries can even be published to the internet and become accessible to any everyday web surfer. I personally have a collection of my favorite works at the Metropolitan Museum that ranges from Greek Pottery to Damien Hirst. There is also the emergence of "podcasting" that is slowing taking the place of audioguides in some museums because they can be downloaded for free at home and listened to from an ipod or other mp3 player. Many art history students have taken to creating their own podcasts as a kind of "uncensored" audioguide for use by their peers. The ground breaking examples of these types of podcasts were the "ArtMobs" of 2005, which were created as a class requirement for a course at Marymount Manhattan College. There are also many web entities that have no museum affiliation but are still valuable resources for the online art community. My favorite of these is Collect Britain (which is run by the British Libraries); they present many virtual exhibitions of their collections since they do not really have exhibition space at any library locations. There is also a great database of their intangible cultural collection such as recordings of Native American and African indigenous rituals and speech studies on different dialects throughout the UK. I hope I have provided you with some useful information. If you would be interested reading a paper I have prepared on the topic of the evolving role of curators in response to emerging sociable technologies in museums you can contact me outside of the listserv. Cheers! Laura Browarny Institute of Museum Ethics Peter Gale <[log in to unmask]> Sent by: Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]> 07/24/2008 08:50 AM Please respond to Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]> To [log in to unmask] cc Subject [MUSEUM-L] Visitor Engagements via the Internet and othe Technologies I have searched Museum-L archives and appreciate that, over the years, there are many different ways that the Internet and related technologies have been used by museums. I am particularly interested in its use as a means of communication and engagement for visitors/users of the museum. The archival information is somewhat scattered, often much broader in its applications, and now, perhaps, somewhat out of date. So, my question. Right now, what are some of the ways that the Internet and related communication methods are being used to successfully engage people of different ages, in different ways, to provide them with special experiences, functions, information, etc., both while they might be in the museum, or away from it? I would appreciate hearing about experiments as well as established programs that have been attempted, or are now established, to expand the knowledges/experiences etc., of people who are interacting with a museum, for whatever reason - from special music provided by the museum as an iPod download to accompany visits in collection galleries to multi-faceted blogs maintained by the museum. Whatever seems to be working, or not. Thanks for any suggestions you might have. ========================================================= 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).