... open the cabinet of your choice...

Abstract

Introduction

Part 1 Online museums

Wires of electronic museum
Objects and audiences
The artefact as an image
The virtual gallery
The user as virtual curator
Museums on the internet
A cyber aperitif?

Part 2 Silicon reflections

AMOL evolution
A virtual community?
Colonising space

Part 3   Inherited architecture and the process of morphogenesis

Beyond data is the 'Open Sky' metadata at the meta center
From database to knowledgebase
The Stream of Stories and the regional museum road show
Distributed server network and the regional grants programme
The 'Open Museum' Journal
Metaphor @ the meta-center
A cabinet of wonder

Conclusion

References

Any discussion of the 'on-line museum' acts as a nexus for many themes: technical, sociological, museological, architectural and conceptual. This paper attempts to weave these diverse elements together - to draw a closure between theory and praxis. Part 1 of the paper is theoretical and will introduce some of the museological constructs that act as a genesis for a discussion of museums on-line. I will concentrate here on the renegotiation of museum objects and processes as information resources in electronic space rather than (as I have argued elsewhere) the dematerialization of traditional museum spaces and their recreation on-line. This renegotiation challenges the traditional position of the museum, not only in its processes but also as a vanguard of authority, authenticity, ownership and rarefaction for cultural collections. To review the repositioning of traditional audiences I will argue for the 'user as curator' within these on-line environments.

The paper will then describe some of the prevalent models for the museum that are emerging on the internet. AMOL is one of several models worldwide that are described in current discourse as 'gateways' or as an 'information meta-centers' to aggregated digital information.

Part 2 of the paper focuses on the history and development of AMOL. Through AMOL we can witness the organic expansion of a cultural network that has bridged gaps in between centers traditionally known for their exclusivity and in terms of regional museums their geographical isolation. The paper then moves to reflect upon the emergent culture the virtual communities that enable AMOL to flourish. In a critique of requirements and expectation of the users and affiliates of the web the discussion looks to some of the critical issues currently being examined by the development of such meta-centers.

Part 3   moves to the viewpoint of the web designer to examine how AMOL develops responses to the various issues rising in the earlier parts of the discussion, that is, ways the AMOL web will respond to creating knowledge rather than delivery of passive information, of how it will respond to its users and contributors. The various projects and initiatives that will occur in the upcoming months of 1998 will be outlined together with the overall metaphor/poetics for the redesign.

The necessary restriction for this analysis prevents more than a cursory glance at the current debates surrounding museological theory and the implications of internet technology. The footnotes seek to supplement the reader interested in a broader discussion of New Museology and the particular problems of developing resources for museum internet projects (eg copyright, intellectual property, standards and metadata, evaluation and analysis, useability and interface design and so forth).

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