Visit Visual Museums

Let’s go visit some cool museums – in the comfort of home.

Museums collect all kinds of things. More and more museums are creating virtual museums as a way to share their collections with people around the world.

While visiting a museum “live” and seeing the artifacts up close is ideal, we can see images and objects online without the museum crowds or guards – and sometimes even “walk” around them.

Connect:

There are so many virtual museums to choose from! What are you interested in? What do you want to know more about?

Here are some directories (lists) of online and virtual museums:

• Museum of Online Museums: http://www.coudal.com/moom/
• Directory of different kinds of online collections: http://virtualology.com/
• http://museums.wikia.com/wiki/Virtual_Library_museums_pages
• Museum field trips: http://www.gaillovely.com/fieldtrips.htm#museums 
• Science museums:
• http://www.sln.org/museums/index.html

Here are some virtual versions of top museums:

• http://www.europeanvirtualmuseum.net/
• Smithsonian: http://www.si.edu/ 
• Exploratorium science museum: http://www.exploratorium.edu/
• Louvre art museum: http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp?bmLocale=en

You can experience a museum in lots of ways: enjoying the visual aspect, learning about history, finding out about techniques, seeing changes over time, thinking about what people were doing at the time that the artifact was made, linking it to things you see every day. Everyone has a unique point of view – so your family can share those unique insights.

Create:

Let’s create our own virtual museum!

> What do you collect? What do you want to select to share? What do you want to say about your collection? How do you want to present your collection? These are some guiding questions to think about first.

> This article explains how to start a virtual museum:

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Virtual-Museum

> You can use tools such as Google Picasa or a Facebook album to organize your museum.

> You might want to keep your virtual museum private at first, for just the family. Remember that even physical museums have security to make sure the collection stays safe. Be sure to check your privacy setting for your virtual museum.

Care:

> Museums are a way to show that people care. Museums preserve cultural heritages, document life as it is and how it was. The American Museum of Natural History has an exhibit about endangered species: http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/Endangered/. You might create a virtual museum about your neighborhood.

> Many museums are non-profit, and need donations to keep their doors (and websites) open. Perhaps one of the virtual museums you saw would like some help; even letting other people know about the museum can be a way to care for the museum.

> Museum collections have to be maintained – and they can sometime deteriorate, or disasters can damage them. The Smithsonian has great information about caring and preserving collections: http://si.edu/mci/english/learn_more/taking_care/index.html. If you have a collection (such as toys, cards, games, stickers, books), you might find this article very useful.

Careers:

Museum curators select, plan, catalog, and manage collection items. There are lots of other museum jobs too. Maybe someone in your family will work in a museum some day.

Become a Museum Professional: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Education-Training-and-Library/Curators-and-museum-technicians.htm

For Parents:

Here are a couple of educational guides about virtual museums:

http://christykeeler.com/EducationalVirtualMuseums.html  http://www.theteachersguide.com/virtualtours.html#Museums