Figure 4 - uploaded by Jonathan Peter Bowen
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Interface Message Processor (IMP), first packet router for the ARPANET, designed in the 1960s by Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN), now in the Computer Museum, Mountain View, California, United States.
Source publication
Museums are in a unique position of both recording the history of human communication through networks and also using the medium to their own advantage. Fast communication of messages at long distance dates back much earlier than the Internet on which many people rely today. For example, at Masada in Israel, there are the remains of a two thousand...
Citations
... The Science Museum in London was one of the first museums in the United Kingdom to have its own web server, second only to the Natural History Museum next to it (Bowen, 2010). The Science Museum hosted an early meeting on web service provision by and for museums, concurrently with an exhibition on the Information Superhighway at the museum in 1995 (Swade, 1995). ...
... online newsgroup, now part of Google Groups (Bowen, 1995b). It was originally hosted on the Oxford University Computing Laboratory web server in the United Kingdom (Bowen 2010). It formed part of the Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp), itself a section of the Virtual Library established by Tim Berners-Lee to form a directory of the web before good search engines were available (Gaia et al. 2020;Marty et al., 2021). ...
... The Of the NMSI museums, The Science Museum undertook significant web-based projects to enable access to science learning and object-based resources (Borda & Bud, 2003;Borda & Beler, 2003;Ellis & Borda, 2004) and was among the first science museums to push the boundaries of going beyond organizational structure in its website arrangement to focus on a range of visitors' needs who were becoming more aware of the web (Sabin 1997;Streten, 2000;Bowen et al., 2005). The Science Museum website was pioneering in this development and gained early momentum in the mid-1990s (Bowen, 2010). Virtual visitors were accessing virtual galleries as soon as they became available in April 1995 with over a quarter million visitors in the first year and incrementally higher numbers recorded at the start of 1998 (Booth 1999). ...
This paper discusses three case studies of early science museum-related websites in the 1990s and early 2000s, when web technology was still relatively new and evolving. The Virtual Museum of Computing (VMoC) was a completely virtual museum, originally produced in 1995 as part of the Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp), an international online museum directory within the WWW Virtual Library, adopted by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The Science Museum in London was one of the first museums in the United Kingdom to have its own web server. The museum hosted an early meeting on web service provision by and for museums, concurrently with an exhibition on the Information Superhighway at the museum in 1995. Exhiblets were launched online in 1998. Ingenious was a multi-site digital collections transformation project, launched as a website in 2003. Virtual Leonardo and Leonardo’s Ideal City were two experiments conducted by the digital team of the Science and Technology Museum of Milan, between 1999 and 2001. The experiment consisted of the creation of a shared online 3D world, namely a reconstruction of the real museum in the first case and a completely imaginary world in the second case. This paper describes the above three case studies from the early World Wide Web and then draws some conclusions, from first-hand experience of developments at the time. We cover both the advantages and the challenges encountered by the various projects and illustrate why they did not necessarily become established, despite promising early results.
Keywords: virtual museum; science museum; World Wide Web; case study; internet history
... So, in addition to material associated with my more official work in computer science, I also create a directory of links to online museum resources. On 16 June 1994, I sent an email to Arthur Secret at CERN with the URL for a web page at Oxford, offering to maintain the entry for "Museums" in the WWW Virtual Library (Bowen 2010). ...
... In June 1995, I decided to experiment with a purely online "virtual museum" and created a "Virtual Museum of Computing" (VMoC), which I incorporated to be part of VLmp (Bowen 1996b). The site's main page attracted a hundred hits a day within a week or so (Bowen 2010). It included various online "galleries", including a resource on the computing pioneer Alan Turing, curated by the 6 Oxford-based mathematician and definitive Turing biographer, Andrew Hodges (Bowen et al. 2005). ...
In this paper, we analyse trends of the first wave of museum websites (from the 1990s to the early 2000s) to understand how the characteristics of the Internet (specifically the World Wide Web), of museum staff, and museum audiences shaped the adoption of technology and new forms of participation and what they can tell us about engagement for museums of the future. The early development of online museum resources parallels the development of the EVA conference, which was establishing itself at a similar time.
... So, in addition to material associated with my more official work in computer science, I also create a directory of links to online museum resources. On 16 June 1994, I sent an email to Arthur Secret at CERN with the URL for a web page at Oxford, offering to maintain the entry for "Museums" in the WWW Virtual Library (Bowen 2010). ...
... In June 1995, I decided to experiment with a purely online "virtual museum" and created a "Virtual Museum of Computing" (VMoC), which I incorporated to be part of VLmp (Bowen 1996b). The site's main page attracted a hundred hits a day within a week or so (Bowen 2010). It included various online "galleries", including a resource on the computing pioneer Alan Turing, curated by the 6 Oxford-based mathematician and definitive Turing biographer, Andrew Hodges (Bowen et al. 2005). ...
In this paper, we analyse trends of the first wave of museum websites (from the 1990s to the early 2000s) to understand how the characteristics of the Internet (specifically the World Wide Web), of museum staff, and museum audiences shaped the adoption of technology and new forms of participation and what they can tell us about engagement for museums of the future. The early development of online museum resources parallels the development of the EVA conference, which was establishing itself at a similar time.
... The author pays considerable attention to the development of new media, which had a direct impact on the restructuring of museums and the creation of forthcoming virtual museums. Based on a study of web archives, Jonathan P. Bowen's article shows the first virtual museums, analyzes a set of digital museum resources, including those distributed on CD-ROM [3]. This article has a more technological approach to the history of museum web space and focuses on the author's personal experience in developing a virtual library, the first system of "documenting" online museum resources. ...
Many thousands of virtual museums exist on the Internet, demonstrating very diverse and significant museum resources, showcasing the treasury of humankind. These resources have come a long way in their evolution over past decades. The history of virtual museums began long before they appeared on the Internet, and the concept of virtual museums needed to be established in order to become an essential and effective means of accomplishing new museum functions in the digital age. Through the designing of such a concept, the creation and development of museums' information resources, websites and various digital initiatives have become the keys to the success of museums in the digital environment today. This article considers the concept of a virtual museum , traces the transition of virtual museums from analog and interim multime-dia formats to the online environment. The author surveys the crucial moments in the history of virtual museums and the stages of their development from the digital turn to their appearance on the Internet and subsequent transformation after this transition. In this article examples of museum information resources from North America and Europe, Japan and Australia are traced back to the first virtual museums online in the 1990s. Based on the analysis of materials from web archives, strategies for creating the first virtual museum resources on the WWW are identified.
... Secondly, creating and using such phenomenon as virtual museums, easily accessible in the Internet, provides the best opportunities for exploring cultural and historical materials, which has certain communication means (feedback of users and etc.). Some of the foreign writers consider it as part of the mainstream development of media culture (Croteau & Hoynes, (2003), Castells, (2009; othersas a separate branch of digital art (Bowen, (2010), Bowen, Bennett, andJohnson (1998), Fürstner, (2006), Giaccardi (2006)). ...
... I would like to save this work and use it in the educational process of the department of pedagogy. Analysis of the experience of modern museums, as well as many educational organizations (Belkina, 2013;Bowen, 2010) helped us solve the following problem: -the creation of an instrumental portal (Bishop, 2014), the foundation of which will be a specialized information system for the management of virtual museums and scientific collections. The information system will allow creating, filling, setting up and publishing virtual museums and collections of scientific and educational orientation, which is possible without the participation of specialists in the field of information technology and with minimal resource requirements. ...
... The first virtual museums appeared in the early 1990s (for example, the Museum of Computer Art (MOCA), which began work in 1993) (Osborne, 2013). D.P. Bowen notes that the term "virtual museum" appeared in the early 1990s, and as a "historical record" among the virtual museums opened by private individuals, refers to the virtual museum WebLouvre, created by the French student Nicolas Pioch (Nicolas Pioch) in 1994 (Bowen, 2010). The value of the research of D.P. Bowen is attributed to the fact that he not only studies virtual museums as a researcher, publishing individually and co-authored work on this topic, but personally created in 1994 the world's first catalog of online museums (Bowen, 2010). ...
... D.P. Bowen notes that the term "virtual museum" appeared in the early 1990s, and as a "historical record" among the virtual museums opened by private individuals, refers to the virtual museum WebLouvre, created by the French student Nicolas Pioch (Nicolas Pioch) in 1994 (Bowen, 2010). The value of the research of D.P. Bowen is attributed to the fact that he not only studies virtual museums as a researcher, publishing individually and co-authored work on this topic, but personally created in 1994 the world's first catalog of online museums (Bowen, 2010). A number of researchers refer to the origins of the virtual museum as a cultural phenomenon by the beginning of the 20th century and to the works of avant-garde classics (Huhtamo, 2002). ...
... As explained earlier in this chapter, the University of California's Museum of Paleontology launched their ground-breaking first website at some point in 1993, which appears to be the first instance of search in a Web-based digital collection ( Figure 2). It included the functionality to search the museum's collection database online (Guralnick, 1997;Bowen, 2010). Robert Guralnick (1997), its creator, explained that "although not elegant, [the collections interface] was pragmatic in 1993 when the kinds of interfaces necessary had yet to be built." ...
... Guralnick (1997) wrote that: "in museums that have collections, like many science museums, the Web will become the 17 2 PRACTiCE REviEW standard interface to collections information." A prescient claim, as it would be at least two more years before other museum and gallery websites started to place more comprehensive collection material online (Bowen, 2010;. ...
Over the past decade there has been a huge push by cultural institutions to digitise their collection material and facilitate access to it on the Web. In the process of doing this, many galleries and museums have taken their existing catalogue style systems and replicated them online. Most rely on a keyword-based method that is targeted at a user who already knows collections, understands how they are structured and how to search them effectively. There is little room for the non-specialist, the visitor who just wants to have a look around, to browse, explore and play. I ask, is it possible to create a digital collection access interface that allows exploration and discovery to occur?
Taking advantage of new technologies I have created six innovative and experimental interfaces using data from the National Gallery of Australia’s Australian Prints + Printmaking website and combined data visualisation techniques with modern web design methods to create new ways of accessing the collection. They emphasise relationships within the collection and provide displays that are denser and richer than conventional Web pages. Results from a mixed-method evaluation study show how the interfaces allow for serendipitous discovery and free-form exploration to occur in ways that are beneficial to the user.
In the development of these rich visual interfaces the research project addresses a number of challenges and issues, from the reliability of data to the limits of the Web browser and traditional evaluation techniques.
The research project demonstrates that it is possible to develop effective Web-based generous interfaces that encourage exploration and discovery within digital cultural heritage collections.
... Others in the 1990s also considered the ways in which new technology was changing people's lives (Economist, 1996). That decade saw a rapid growth of the Web that has deeply affected all advanced societies and organizations, including museums (Bowen, 1995(Bowen, , 1997a(Bowen, , 2000(Bowen, , 2010. The first Museums and the Web conference was held in 1997 (Bowen, 1997b), and the conference has continued annually as a focus for museums wishing to be at the forefront of digital developments, especially online. ...
The New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) involves the research libraries of the Brooklyn Museum, Frick, and MoMA. Together with the Pratt Institute, the Brooklyn Museum and then NYARC have undertaken partnership projects to implement digitization of collections in a museum-education setting. This paper explores challenges including integrating digital information within the physical museum and on the Web, recognizing the crucial role this plays in user engagement. Education is a key aspect, and information on a new master program to support professionals in the interdisciplinary skills needed is also presented. Leading museums realize the importance of an integrated digital approach. The Cooper Hewitt Museum’s newly redeveloped display is presented as a model example. Educational underpinning and inventive use of digital technology, with regard for social and cultural issues, are key aspects for success.
... Others in the 1990s also considered the ways in which new technology was changing people's lives (Economist, 1996). That decade saw a rapid growth of the Web that has deeply affected all advanced societies and organizations, including museums (Bowen, 1995(Bowen, , 1997a(Bowen, , 2000(Bowen, , 2010. The first Museums and the Webconference was held in 1997 (Bowen, 1997b), and the conference has continued annually as a focus for museums wishing to be at the forefront of digital developments, especially online. ...
The New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) involves the research libraries of the Brooklyn Museum, Frick, and MoMA. Together with the Pratt Institute, the Brooklyn Museum and then NYARC have undertaken partnership projects to implement digitization of collections in a museum-education setting. This paper explores challenges including integrating digital information within the physical museum and on the Web, recognizing the crucial role this plays in user engagement. Education is a key aspect, and information on a new master program to support professionals in the interdisciplinary skills needed is also presented. Leading museums realize the importance of an integrated digital approach. The Cooper Hewitt Museum’s newly redeveloped display is presented as a model example. Educational underpinning and inventive use of digital technology, with regard for social and cultural issues, are key aspects for success.
... Online/virtual tours: One of the earliest examples of a virtual museum was WebLouvre which delivered high-quality (for the time) copies of works of art by leading historical artists [13]. Following this ground-breaking example, galleries around the world have initiated projects to build networks for on-line fruition of artwork and cultural heritage resources [57,58,64,65]. ...
The amount of multimedia data collected in museum databases is growing fast, while the capacity of museums to display information to visitors is acutely limited by physical space. Museums must seek the perfect balance of information given on individual pieces in order to provide sufficient information to aid visitor understanding while maintaining sparse usage of the walls and guaranteeing high appreciation of the exhibit. Moreover, museums often target the interests of average visitors instead of the entire spectrum of different interests each individual visitor might have. Finally, visiting a museum should not be an experience contained in the physical space of the museum but a door opened onto a broader context of related artworks, authors, artistic trends, etc. In this paper we describe the MNEMOSYNE system that attempts to address these issues through a new multimedia museum experience. Based on passive observation, the system builds a profile of the artworks of interest for each visitor. These profiles of interest are then used to drive an interactive table that personalizes multimedia content delivery. The natural user interface on the interactive table uses the visitor’s profile, an ontology of museum content and a recommendation system to personalize exploration of multimedia content. At the end of their visit, the visitor can take home a personalized summary of their visit on a custom mobile application. In this article we describe in detail each component of our approach as well as the first field trials of our prototype system built and deployed at our permanent exhibition space at LeMurate (http://www.lemurate.comune.fi.it/lemurate/) in Florence together with the first results of the evaluation process during the official installation in the National Museum of Bargello (http://www.uffizi.firenze.it/musei/?m=bargello).
