First let me apologize for the tone of my last posting.  I should indeed
give this guy a break, he and any others can make Web pages anyway they
like and who am I to say they are wrong.  I merely tried to bring up for
discussion the idea that using up to date technology eliminates a large
segment of our possible audience.  And judging from the replies I think
the first thng we need to do is decide who we want that audience to be.
It seems to me that many of us are content to communicate with only each
other.  There is nothing wrong with that.  The internet, regardless of the
format provides professionals of many stripes to share information in ways
our predesessors never dreamed.  But if you want to aim your presentation
at "The Public" however you may define it, you must keep their
capabilities and aptitudes in mind.  There are millions of people in the
United States alone who get most of their information concerning the
Internet from newspaper articles on "cyberporn," sensationalist news
magazine covers and big budget Hollywood movies with nubile actresses.
Many of these people have computers and modems and any number of kids and
they are currently trying to decide if they want to take advantage of the
information superhighway for their personal use.  Can they afford a
TCP/PPP  connection (Yes Netscape is free for now, but these connections
are not) or AOL, Compuserve, et al?  If we want to attract these people to
the Internet generally and our sites specifically we must keep in mind
their limitations and concerns.  Even this list, a text based forum for
discussing proffessional concerns  can be intimidating to those who do not
understand the culture.  Many posters, and I fear I am among them, can be
down right rude to people who post what to the initiated are silly
questions.  And I still maintain that requiring higher-end software and
hardware to enjoy our internet presentations can be similarly
intimidating.

Again, I am not arguing against using these techniques in your own pages,
I am merely posing the question;  Is it wise to depend on these techniques
if our goal is to reach the widest possible audience with our educational
WWW presentations?(not necessarily a give)

I would again like to apologize for the almost angry tone of my last
posting, but I fear I am getting short tempered with people who do not
seem to realize that the rest of the world does not share their access to
cutting edge computer technology.  Yes all Museums have computers and
Internet access available to them, but there is a large number of
institutions that cannot take advantage of this availability because of a
number of factors, most boiling down to money.

 And I am keeping this thread artificially alive because in this thread as
in many others concerning technology on this list we as a group seem to
forget that we are not a random sampling of the population.  We tend to be
educated (most probably have graduate degrees),  financially well off
relative to others in our society and the world,  and computer savvy.  The
rest of the world is not.   Yes we can get software, hardware, experise,
labor, and disk space donated,  but our audience has to pay for all of
these things at premium prices.  Yes, we as computer literate internet
users know the difference between Lynx and Netscape and, like Eric, can
wait until their browser can support the added features, but the average
person may not even understand why their screen "looks like crap" let
alone what to do about it.   Yes most museums have computers, but most
people don't.   On this issue and others I fear we seem to forget that we
are the technological "haves", but a healthy portion of  our colleages and
potential audience are "have-nots".    And it is a problem we need to keep
in mind when discussing any issues of technology whether as a pofessional
or educational tools.

Sorry this took so long, have a swell day.

--
Matthew A. White
Director of Education & Coach of Champion Duckpin Bowling Team
Baltimore Museum of Industry
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