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

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