The World Wide Web and the Virtual Library museums pages

Abstract

The World Wide Web (WWW) has been expanding exponentially since it was launched. It provides a unifying way to navigate and present information around the world in seconds using the Internet computer network. Many types of organization have been caught up in the revolution and are struggling to cope with the effects and keep pace with the development of the technology. One such community is that of museums. This paper presents the way museums are currently using the Web internationally, and how their use could develop in the future. Included is a description of the Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp), a leading directory of online museums, recently adopted by the International Council of Museums. Some of the ‘virtual’ visitor statistics are also presented and discussed.

Weaving the museum web: the Virtual Library museums pages

“…The Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp, http://vlmp.museophile.com/) (Bowen, 1997) were first established in 1994 as part of the Virtual Library (http://www.vlib.org/). The Virtual Library forms a distributed directory of online resources, originally established by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web (Berners-Lee, 1999), and is maintained by volunteer experts around the world.…”

“…The number of visitors by hours of the days follows US working hours (see Tables IIIa & b), although the difference in the maximum and minimum levels is much less pronounced than in the past (Bowen, 1997). In 2000 it was less than a factor of two (around 1.8) whereas in the early days of VLmp it used to be more like 3.5 (Bowen, 1996).…”

“…The number of unknown (numerical) domains is around a third of total accesses and this has not changed much over time (Bowen, 1997). The US educational accesses (.edu domain) continue to appear to diminish, although this is really an indication of the increase in web activity by everyone else since universities have been using the Internet for decades and their usage is likely to be relatively static.…”

“…Europe is not far behind at around a third of locatable accesses. The number of unknown (numerical) domains is around a third of total accesses and this has not changed much over time (Bowen, 1997 the leading countries using VLmp on this continent. Africa continues to have very low VLmp usage, with no dramatic increase in percentage terms unlike Asia and South America yet (although it is at least keeping relative pace with North America in percentage terms).…”