MUSEUMS

Backto 1997 EDUCATIONAL LINKS... by Nanis

The Exploratorium

http://www.exploratorium.edu
This is a great attempt to bring a museum online. There arepractical details, plus attempts to bring to life some of the SanFrancisco Exploratorium's 650 interactive exhibits, from a 'duckinto' kaleidoscope to the Ames room (it has no square corners).To get the full effect of the Exploratorium pages, your systemneeds to support the JPEG picture compression standard.
Top of Page |

The WhitneyMuseum of American Art

http://www.echonyc.com/~whitney/WMAA/
The Whitney has gone for a simple but brilliantly affectingapproach. Rather than deluge visitors with whole exhibitions andinformation overload, it has put its efforts into creating aforum for people to discuss art, the museum and its changing rolein American culture. Permanent as well as temporary exhibits areall here Ü anything from Afro-american to Beat culture Ü butthere is also a BBS for members, a collection of conferencepapers to view, as well as a unique site for artists' projects onthe World Wide Web. Check out Hollywood Archaeology. Later in theyear there's an exhibition called Edward Hopper and the AmericanImagination. As well as visiting it online, it's possible toorder a catalogue, books and a poster from the store next door.
Top of Page |

The Vatican Museums

http://www.roma2000.it/zmusvat.html#cosa
Now if you're going to Rome, definitely check this out first.Beautifully illustrated and well-written this site lists all ofthe Vatican-controlled museums. There are a lot to choose fromand obviously they have a certain slant. Read about the GregorianMuseum of Profane Art, the Biga Room and the Room of theImmaculate Conception - I'm not making this up. For art loversand historians this is a must and before you go you can print outa map of all 24 museums
Top of Page |

The Museum of GardenHistory

http://www.compulink.co.uk/~museumgh/
It's a joy to meander around this gentle museum site,although it's nothing flashy and some of the graphics are a bitpoor. The content - a spot of gardening history, a few old tools,featured garden designers etc - reveals what a little gem thisLondon-based museum is. Forget the cold frames, come into thewarm and have a look around.
Top of Page |

Discover: Key Westmuseums

http://key-west.com/tours/museum01.htm
If you're planning a museum tour of Key West (and who isn't),here's the site for you! Eleven choices await you - there's anantique lover's dream in the form of The Curry Mansion Inn,literary lovers can revel in the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museumand for history lovers there's the Wreckers' Museum - the mosthistoric home in South Florida. Not much in the way ofillustration or interactivity, but what is there is well done andworth a read. Quite why you would want to tour museums in such alovely part of the world eludes me though!
Top of Page |

Rock and Roll Hall ofFame

http://www.rocknroll.org/
What an extremely lack-lustre, sad and sorry, routinely dull,wasted opportunity of an excuse for a site. It could be a spanglysequinned celebration of rock celebrity and culture, aspresumably the museum is itself. Instead it's an almost entirelytext-based description of the museum's over-hyped exhibits. Whynot show us Buddy Holly's high school diploma or Hendrix'handwritten lyrics for Purple Haze? Could do better.
Top of Page |

National Museums ofScotland

http://www.nms.ac.uk
Seven museums are represented here under the umbrella of theNational Museums of Scotland, including the Museum ofAntiquities, Shambellie House Museum of Costume and BiggarGasworks. Information on current exhibitions and permanentexhibits is included, along with lists of publications,educational resources and how you can get to see them.
Top of Page |

UnitedStates Holocaust Memorial Museum

http://www.ushmm.org/
Unfortunately this is not an attempt to put the museum'sinformation on the Web but merely a stopping off point whenpreparing for a visit. As well as details of what is housed atits home in Washington, there is also a list of educationalresources and, more generally, some contacts for Holocaustresearch and organisations based mostly in the States.
Top of Page |

Museum of theHistory of Science

http://www.ox.ac.uk/departments/hooke/
These very neat, precise, rather academic pages are actuallyvery good. In one sense there's quite a lot of text but it'saccompanied by some great images of early scientific instruments,portraits and illustrations from the museum's collections and alltogether they provide a great insight into the cultural andhistorical development of science as a discipline.
Top of Page |

Boston Computer Museum

http://www.net.org/
It's such a shame that what looks like an absolutelyfantastic museum fails to translate successfully to the Web.Great sounding exhibits like The Walk-Through Computer and TheNetworked Planet are featured merely as text-based descriptions,and the potential of these things online remains miserablyunderexploited.
Top of Page |

UCMP Time Machine

http://ucmp1.berkeley.edu/timeform.html
Jump on the University of California's Museum ofPaleontology's time machine for a rocky ride through geologicaleras.
Top of Page |

United States CivilWar Center

http://www.cwc.lsu.edu
Strictly speaking this isn't a museum, it's a big time bonafide resource for anyone interested in finding out about theCivil War.
Top of Page |

The Mary Rose

http://www.synergy.net/homeport.html
Having followed the discovery and restoration of the 16thcentury warship, The Mary Rose, on Blue Peter, year in, year out,it's great to see it for the first time Üænot in dock atPortsmouth but on the Web. The virtual tour is largely text-basedand has that 'school project' quality but it's a history lessonat home.
Top of Page |

MorikamiMuseum and Japanese Gardens

http://www.icsi.com/ics/morikami/
A few tranquil photographs and an item on the classical artof ikebana from the only museum in the States dedicatedexclusively to the living culture of Japan. Peacefulindeed.
Top of Page |

Science Museum

http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/
Not the sort of site you'd want to hang around at for thewhole of Sunday afternoon. The Science Museum, after all, holds amonumental amount of stuff to shift around online. Useful visitorinformation on exhibits and collections is easily accessed butthe volume of information is pretty specialised - educationalmaterials, research resources and a fair amount of academictext.
Top of Page |

Field Museum ofNatural History

http://www.bvis.uic.edu/museum
This Chicago museum has placed a multimedia tour of its DNAto Dinosaurs exhibit. You can page through the eras, downloadingmovies and sound bites. There's also a display of Javanese masksand more to come. One to show the kids.
Top of Page |

Conservatoire National

http://www.cnam.fr
Many used to come here for the random femmes page, but it'snow behind shutters. Now you'll have to be content with theConservatoire's catalogue, a virtual tour of the Museum of Artsand Crafts, and a nifty picture browser which takes files fromnewsgroups (such as alt.binaries.pictures.misc) and compiles theminto online contact sheets.
Top of Page |

The Natural HistoryMuseum

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/
The is the first major UK museum to enter the Internet age.You can find out more about the museum's activities, events andtimetables and there are a few pictures. Not a substitute for avisit, but a peek behind the scenes is nonetheless of interest.There are also links to other sources about the earth, lifesciences and the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum.
Top of Page |