This interesting posting may perhaps reignite the discussion a few weeks ago
about what constitutes a "virtual museum".  I didn't feel that discussion was
taken as far as it might have been.
 
I think it worthwhile to hash out in THIS forum a common sense (if possible) of
what constitutes a "virtual museum" .  An example of what may happen if the
museum community itself fails to come to grips with the term is seen in the way
"interactivity",  in being elevated to a buzzword, has become so diluted in
meaning as to be almost disempowered - something the concept of
different "levels" of interactivity has only partially moderated.  (And I don't
exclude myself from the guilty in the overuse of the
term).
 
Jamie McKenzie's article seems to me to fail to distinguish between
"exhibition" and "museum", reflecting a still common public misperception
equating museums with their exhibitions alone.  Although the article does
include _some_ awareness of research and education functions of a museum.
 
I can see students creating virtual exhibits, but to create a virtual museum
implies to me a much more extensive and involved venture.
 
My second concern relates to applying "virtual museum" to the electronic
representation of an actual existing institution.  I favour a more restrictive
application.  My own understanding of "virtual", in the IT sense, as applied to
exhibit, museum, performance etc., is that it relates to an entity/activity
which exists (using THAT term broadly) in virtual
space, by creating digitally an information environment that does NOT represent
or reflect an actual entity/activity existing at
any given time in the physical world.  I almost said "real world", but we may
today be in the process of expanding the definition "reality", which is perhaps
as much perception as actuality.
 
In this sense, my preference would be not to use the concept of "virtual
museum" for a digitized information environment that
represents an actual, physical-world institution (or, rather, a selection of
its information resources).  I agree with Peter Rauch (posting  "Re: Confused
about Virtually Everything" on 3 December 1994) that "surrogate" might be a
better term to apply to a digital representation of an existing physical
institution.  Although "electronic surrogate museum" risks being wordy and
pretentious (let me hasten to add that Peter didn't suggest that combination).
 
 
I think it would be more _useful_ to restrict the application of "virtual
museum" to the bringing together, in virtual space, of
digitized information resources whose physical storage/server sites are
geographically dispersed, for the purpose of simulating a museum-like
environment.  This assumes that the museum metaphor
remains at this point in time a useful paradigm for organizing information and
presenting it in ways that inform and educate,
and also potentially offers a yardstick for judging to what degree any
so-called virtual museum warrants that description (as
opposed to a Web site where information is presented, for instance, more in the
form of archive or book paradigms).  In time these conventional metaphors may
go by the boards and we will see entirely new metaphors emerge in virtual
space.
 
Stemming from what I have already said, let me add that it is not my impression
that any true virtual museums exist as yet.  Some
virtual exhibition centres perhaps.  But I don't know of any (realized) effort
to address how a virtual MUSEUM would be fully expressed on the Web (or its
postulated successor), given the range of functions of a museum in terms of
collecting, preserving, researching, communicating/educating.  To capture the
paradigm, a site should represent the component elements, albeit that they
might assume a somewhat different character in a
digital environment.
 
It is clear enough how the Web offers the potential to communicate museum
information.  Certainly it is valid for a
physical-world institution to use the Web basically as a marketing tool.
However, I   hope that a growing number of museums will proceed beyond that
stage to offer more substantial content that can make them a real learning
resource.  At the same time, can we yet envisage how the mandates of
collecting, preserving and researching will express themselves in the context
of a virtual museum?
 
Stephen Alsford
Special Projects Officer
Canadian Museum of Civilization
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