PROVEN PRACTICES FOR THE CREATION OF VIRTUAL EXHIBITS AND COLLECTIONS
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Authors
Doctor, Olivia Doctor
Issue Date
2017
Type
Capstone
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
This project attempts to answer the question of what are the best practices for creation a virtual exhibit or collection by surveying museum professionals about their attitudes, knowledge, and motivations about virtual exhibits and collections and by visiting museum websites in order to evaluate them to attempt to determine potential best practices. The surveys of museum professionals highlight the goal of accessibility as the driving force behind most attempts at creating virtual exhibits and collections, with funding, time, and technological limitations seen as the main factors limiting the adoption of virtual exhibits and collections by more institutions. Suggestions made by surveytaker, who had worked on virtual exhibits and collections before, suggest that proper planning, training, and a willingness to change are key to designing a well-functioning virtual exhibit or collection. The reviews of museum websites show a broad spread of designs, functionality, and information. The reviews also show that interactivity is sadly still lacking in many virtual exhibits and collections. However, the website review also uncovered some interesting trends among online exhibits and collections, including that some websites manage to have the aspects of both a well-curated museum tur and a database search through the collection, and furthermore these hybrid exhibits tended to score very well in most categories. One website, the Colonial Williamsburg exhibit Historic Threads outright allowed visitors to toggle between curated article with select objects and a more robust object database (Appendix D).