I remember with clarity the day I got connected to this mysterious new thing called the World Wide Web: 1.1.95. Three of us had persuaded our reluctant administration to let us try this thing, reporting that museums were starting to “go on-line,” whatever that meant. (I think I still have the text-only print-out I had of the Dallas Museum of Fine Art’s website — it may have been a MOSAIC site.) A couple of donors from the US had mentioned to the Director that “even the Louvre is on the WWW!” That did it.
But then it turned out that the Louvre website wasn’t the Louvre’s at all, but a site created by an instantly-legendary student, much to the august museum’s surprise. In other words, what was striking at the beginning of this adventure was that “anyone can be a museum,” that “on the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog,” and that it was “the Wild West” out there in cyberspace. Dated phrases, indeed.
Jennifer Trant was kind enough to post on mcn-l the reference for a list of more than 200 museum and museum-related sites on-line in 1995:
Abstract: “A new form of ”museum” has emerged which takes advantage of the Internet’s seemingly limitless format options for electronic presentation and ability to tailor in-depth presentations to niche audiences. Constraints of ownership and geographic location are lessened as Internet-based museums point to sources across the globe. Collections which are physically impossible to construct are being mounted electronically. Offers a sampler of museums and galleries around the world which are making use of WorldWide Web or Gopher servers.”
That’s what I remember: that in those early days the impression was that a new kind of “museum” would emerge, not necessarily that existing museums would have a parallel on-line life.
Jumping ahead (only 11 years later, and it seems like a lifetime) it seems that Google Images has fulfilled that prophecy, in a way we couldn’t possibly have imagined.
December 20th, 2006 11:36
It does seem like a lot of collections are being created in ways we would have never thought. And those collections are accessed by millions so seamlessly. I think another GREAT example is what Flickr has done, http://www.flickr.com, in creating a collecting and sharing community. What could the possibilities be if an enterprising programmer created the Flickr of the museum world.