On Wed, 29 Nov 1995, Dale Kutzera
wrote:

> Sorry, can't let this one slip by.  Saying peope won't use on-line museum
> web pages becuase the cost of a computer is too high, is like saying, a
> hundred years ago, that phones will never catch on because the cost of
> a stamp is so much cheaper.

I also agree that computers will most likely become more and more
inexpensive and common, as have phones and phone service.  But, phones
have not replaced mail service or people actually meeting and talking in
person, and probably never will.

And even phone service is a physical and economic impossibility for many
people in the world and the US.

>
> Actually, for many people the cost of going on-line is comperable to
> buying plan-fare to New York, Paris, or London, staying in a hotel, meals,
> taxi, etc. and the cost of admission to the Met, Louvre, or National
> Gallery.  The bottom line is that  many people will only access your
> museum's information from the web.  This should be a guiding
> assumption when planning a web site.
>

I'm not saying that museums shouldn't try and reach the cyber audience,
as well as the audience who is able to travel to London, Paris, the Met.

I should explain that I'm definitely a disciple of the belief that
museums are public institutions and as such should serve ALL people (blame
"Excellence and Equity" and my die-hard allegiance to the public school
system of which I am a product.)
As many people in museums have pointed out, the current museum audience
is not very representative of "The Public" (at least in the US), but I
would argue that the audience of cyber-museums is even LESS
representative of "The Public."

There are several implicit characteristics of the WWW audience:
 1. access to a computer
2. access to online service
3. literacy (I think there's great potenial for graphics, and
interactives on the Web, but at this point it is still very much a text
medium.)
4. literacy in English
 (how many museum www sites have Spanish, Hmong,
Madarin, or Russian versions of the same page)
5. Sight (I suspect there are applications and hardware that
provide audio descriptions,but are wwwpage designers taking a
non-sighted audience into consideration when they write the text
description of the images on the Web?)
6.  comfort with a computer


I agree with your statement that many people will access your museum only
from the web, but I also think that the number of people for whom a
physical museum visit is an  option is still far greater than the
number of potential Web visitors.  (Clearly people with physical
disabilities are a huge cyber-museum audience, but this also pre-supposes
access to a computer)

In a perfect world, museums could develop their Web Pages, give out free
computers to EVERYONE, and encourage people to visit the physical museum.
It comes down to $$.  If you are (hypothetically) working in a small museum,
and you have to choose between putting up a Web site OR  doing programming
for underserved/at risk/opressed (pick your adjective) audiences in the
museum's community, which will it be?

Yes, WWW museums are great addition to a "real" museum, but before I
believe that WWW museums are equal to "real" museums, someone will have
to convince me that all people have full and  equal access to both kinds of
museums.  Any takers?