A good question-and it reminds of the days 10-12 years ago when the Internet was becoming more popular. Many museums were hesitant to build Web sites because they feared people wouldn't come to their sites since they could visit them on the Web. It turns out that the opposite is true-it encouraged people to visit museums. I think this is a similar situation. By placing your materials on the Web, you may discover more teachers using your materials and becoming interested in your museum (and in turn encouraging their students and other teachers to visit your museum). Secondly, by placing materials on the Web, it dramatically reduces the time and cost (and trees!) that staff spend on printing, collating, and mailing and using it for more important projects. Max A. van Balgooy Director of Interpretation and Education National Trust for Historic Preservation -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey Durst [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 11:30 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Posting Lesson Plans on Website Museum-L Members, The Alliance for Historic Hillsborough, an umbrella organization for several local historic and cultural organizations, is considering posting the lesson plans for our heritage education programs on our website. Concern has been raised whether making our lesson plans (pre- and post-visit acitivities) so available will lessen the number of school groups visiting our historic sites. The consideration for posting the lesson plans on our website grew out of a need to cut down on the cost of producing hard copies of the teacher's guide. Some of our member organizations believe that more revenue could be lost if teachers chose not to visit their sites, because the lesson plans were available on the website. The revenue from these programs is intended to cover the cost of the material used in the acitivities. What has been the experience of other small to mid-sized museums with posting lesson plans on your webiste? Have you found it decreased or increased the number of school groups visiting your site? We have considered posting abbreviated versions of our lesson plans in order to entice teachers more. Has anyone else tried this compromise with any success? Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you for your time and advice. Jeffrey Durst Education & Interpretation Specialist The Alliance for Historic Hillsborough 150 E. King St. Hillsborough, NC 27278 www.historichillsborough.org <http://www.historichillsborough.org> 919-732-7741 fax 919-732-2266 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).