By Martha Lai
Finally, Canada’s museums are entering the Internet age.
For a long time, our major cultural and scientific institutions used the Internet as another static medium – something akin to an electronic pamphlet. Indeed, many of their Web sites were scanned copies of their advertising copy—their only purpose to lure visitors – and potentially, donations – inside their lofty doors. Not much effort was required for this purpose, and so not much effort was put in. The Web sites of such respected museums like the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto were boring, unchanging packages of such dry information such as its hours, a couple of publicity stills from its permanent collection and the price of admission. The bulk of Canada’s vast museum collections were hidden behind the brick-and-mortar of its physical buildings, accessible only to those who lived in the same city.
In the last few years, however, Canadian museums woke up to the fact that technology can be used to inform as well as advertise, and that Canada was lagging behind the national galleries of Washington, D.C. and London, England. A notable example of this new purpose is Ottawa’s Canadian Museum of Nature (http://www.nature.ca), which won awards with its interactive Web site of exhibits and virtual tours. Geared towards elementary-school children, the design and navigation of the site is simple, but crammed full of content.
About a year and a half ago, Heritage Canada decided to get into the Internet game and helped create Virtual Museum Canada (http://www.virtualmuseum.ca), a Web site that has not yet fulfilled its vast potential. Slicker than nature.ca, its image gallery displays low-resolution, scanned images of artwork housed in various museums around the country. Yet some parts of the site do show just how technology can be used to inform the public in new and exciting ways. By using certain Web technologies, visitors are guided through the panels of an online exhibit in much the same way as in a “real” museum. Thus, a tour on the history of musical instruments comes off as a fresh and fascinating spin on a potentially dull topic. Although it is still experimenting, the virtual museum has already won awards for its role in teaching Canadians about our history and culture, which bodes well for the electronic future of our cultural institutions.
Finally, there is the initiative unveiled in September by the National Gallery of Canada. CyberMuse – Art Unlimited (http://cybermuse.gallery.ca) is an extension of the gallery’s three-year, online project. It currently houses about 9,500 images of artwork, just under a quarter of the gallery’s entire collection. Geared mostly towards students working on history projects, it is nonetheless a fascinating addition to the National Gallery’s program.
With these Web sites, Canadian museums are getting closer to meeting their mandate – to teach as many Canadians as they can about our culture and the world. These are, after all, our national institutions. It’s about time that access to them became national as well.