World-Wide-Web site: Our site on the Internet allows wide dissemination of educational materials gathered or created by the museum around its exhibitions, collections, and film programs. In it's first weeks, the WWW site was already used by a class on our campus for instructional research on the exhibition, In a Different Light. Images from the exhibition are presented along with essays by the curators, critical reviews, and links to related information on the Internet. Components are being developed for other programs such as Urban Revisions, Jumping Lines, and soon, The New Child. For archival and research purposes, the online exhibtion components will remain online after the gallery exhibition has closed.
Multimedia kiosks: We have installed one kiosk, which currently presents information online relating to the exhibition Jumping Lines: Maisin Art and Rainforest Preservation, as well as the museum's general WWW site. Kiosks allow visitors inside the building to access the wealth of online resources as well as special multimedia projects developed by artists and educators. The kiosks are ADA compliant, and the machine for the current kiosk was loaned to us from Visible Interactive Inc.
The PFA Library Document Imaging Project: Supported by a grant from the NEH, and in collaboration with the
Museum Informatics Project, this project will allow users on our campus, and eventually the Internet, to access a vast online archive of over 200,000 clippings and articles on cinema, emphasizing rare and hard to find source material. We will have WWW access to selected records in this database available for demonstration and use here by Fall 1995.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Archive online: This online educational resource will make available the Cha Archive, a collection within the Conceptual Art Archive and Study Center, recently opened at the UAM. The Cha Archive is funded in part by the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Memorial Foundation. The multimedia works of Theresa Cha, from her writings to her video and art objects, will be digitized and organized into a deeply-structured online resource. This project is undertaken in collaboration with the Library at UC Berkeley, and in connection with the Berkeley Finding Aid Project.
Hand-Held Gallery Guides: Working with Visible Interactive Inc. of San Francisco, we are exploring a pilot project to use hand-held Newton computers as visual/audio guides to collections and exhibitions. Unlike most audio-gallery guides, these let visitors use information in a non-linear, interactive manner via the screen, which will be used to display text and image data as well as collecting input from visitors. The unusual combination of visual/text and audio information makes this device a natural assistant for hearing- or visually-impaired visitors and students.
UAM Art Collection Database: Plans are underway to create an online catalog of art objects in the UAM collection, working with the Museum Informatics Project. This comprehensive online resource will contain images, as well as relevant biographical and historical information.
We plan to work within the museum and academic communities and use standards-based open architectures to ensure the long-term viability and use of our electronic resources. We will make full use of the special advantages of electronic media to make these resources ...