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Date: | Mon, 6 Feb 1995 14:05:55 PST |
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Hi ---
Eric speaks eloquently about virtual museums, and for the
most part I have to completely agree with him. However, I
think he has missed the point entirely...
I would hate to think that virtual museums would
somehow replace museums, that people would no longer want to
get the full experience, that sense of space that Eric
has mentioned.
However we need a clear and complete distinction between
virtual museums and real museums. They are different beasts.
They do not compete, they do not even exist in same plane. They
are imcomparable, apples and oranges. The only currency they
share is information, and that currency is more mutable than
any other object that has existence.
We should not be disappointed that the Louvre on the Web
does not look like the real thing. We should not be comparing them
in the first place. It is a mistake.
We should be exicted about virtual museums because they
have the power to inform and they have the power to contruct information
in new ways. For example, virtual museums can take a topic deep into
a hierarchy, so that people can explore and learn at some depth a
particular topic. People can feel free to explore tangents and
get lost in this new space.
I see technology like the Internet being more of a
new way for those connected with real museums to reach an
audience. We should not expect the experiences in a real museum
to somehow be commensurate with experiences in a virtual one.
Cheers,
Robert Guralnick | Museum of Paleontology | University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720 | [log in to unmask] | (510) 642-9696
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