Trish,

>Jim, I am a struggling Masters student. I love the communication
>possibilities of the Internet but am still getting to grips with the
>words used. I used Alta Vista to find a url. Is it ok to find out about
>any url or does it have to be your own?

I used it to do a survey of North American natural history museums.  I was
able to get numbers which allowed me to rank the museums websites according
to how many times their site was refered to on the web.  It seemed to me
that this method gives another way of gauging just how busy a site is, an
alternative to hits (plus you can't get the number of hits another site
gets unless they cooperate with you).

>I am writing a paper on Museums and the Internet but I'm still not quite
>sure how I may use the service you describe. If I would like to gather
>information on the number of hits received by a a group of museums that I
>am researching, is it possible to do this with your facility? I don't
>want to break any rules.

You can't get the # of hits unless you ask for them and they give them to you...
We get about 200,000 hits per month.  Remember, that number means very
little, what you really need is the number of unique hosts which connected
during a particular interval.  One 'person' visiting a website may generate
anywhere from 1 to one hundred hits (or more) depending on how long they
stay and how many pieces of data are called from each page.

There may be a way to 'spy' on a particular server, but unless you have the
money and time to develop the software, that's not much of an option.  The
only approximation I came up with was looking for a particular institutions
URL on another instutions web page.


>
>If so, can you explain in more detail please, step by step.


I learned how to do it using Altavista by reading their help instructions
for advanced searches.  I did this about a year ago, so I don't remember
anymore exactly how I did it, but it was all in the instructions.

>If not, than
>is there a way I can obtain statistics on museum websites other than just
>happening to find this data on some of the websites that offer it or by
>emailing the organisation itself and asking them to tell me?

Like I said above, someone could write a program which watches particular
websites and relays the information.

You might look into seting up a server which counts the number of accesses
to a particular document.  (there is an example on my personal web page...I
just put it in a few days ago...http://www.nhm.org/~jangus)  You could make
the service available to specific institutions, explaining that you provide
it as a free service and in exchange, you keep a copy of the data for
statistical purposes.  This would be very valuble and most institutions
might be willing to use your counter in order to have access to that data.
It shouldn't be too hard to set up this kind of server...there are already
lots of similar servers which providing 'counting' services.  You need to
find one and figure out how they do it.  If you don't have the resources to
set up a server, I'm sure that many institutions (ours included) might be
willing to host the service at no charge...in exchange for credit as a
collaborator.

>
>Is there anything else you can tell me that I could do to help me
>research museum websites?

Either start a listserve for museum website administrators or webmasters,
or see if one already exists.  Then get people to sign on.  That way you'll
have a means to communicate with the right people.  I would join.

You could try to directly email the museums...I might be able to help with
that.  I don't know if you've seen the WWW museum guide I maintian...
(http://www.nhm.org/webmuseums), but all of that information is in a flat,
text based file which could easily be imported into a database program.
From there, you could extract all of the email address which I list in the
guide.  Then you could do a bulk emailing.  I've done this in the past to
let museums know that they're listed in our guide.  I would be happy to
make the database available so long as you give me credit and let me know
how else you might want to use it.

>I am interested in how popular museum
>websites are, whether the museums alter their sites according to
>questions asked (acting on feedback), if websites can eventually be a way
>of gaining information about the visiting public, how museums gauge the
>'success' of their website and what they consider 'success' to be.

If you want people to provide information to you, you'll have to make it as
easy as possible.  You could design a WWW survey page with multiple choice
questions (for the most part) where users could simply and quickly click
their responses.  In a bulk emailing you could request people to visit and
fill out the form, promising that you'll send them a copy of the data (that
would encourage me).  You could also place the www survey in a highly
visible place.  If you design a survey aimed at the general public, a
number of institutions might be willing to provide a link to the survey
from some highly visible part of their webpage.  I would consider letting
you have a link to your survey from the opening page of our cultural guide
(again, inexchange for credit and data).

I think most webmasters would do this for you if you individually approach them.

I'm sending a copy of this to the list.  You might get some additional ideas.

Jim

>
>Thanks a lot
>Trish Downs
>Museums Australia
>24 Queens Parade
>North Fitzroy
>Victoria  Australia 3065
>email < [log in to unmask] >

Jim Angus
Internet and Hypermedia Programs
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
900 Exposition Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA  90007

http://www.nhm.org/nhm

voice:  213/744-3317
fax:    213/746-2999
eMail:  [log in to unmask] = [log in to unmask]
        [log in to unmask]
        [log in to unmask]
        [log in to unmask]
        [log in to unmask]