5 Case Study 1 - Leicester Research Archive - University of Leicester

the future, which he in reference to Hooper-Greenhill 153 defines as audience-
driven museum rather than collection-driven-museum. 154
Dietz et. al. argue along similar lines when they say that “prior to online exhibits,
the curator had exclusive control over juxtaposition and contextualization. But
virtual museums allow both other museum staff and the general public to
perform their own juxtapositions and contextualization. One of the main
challenges for the next generation of virtual museums is to find a common
platform for the great variety of virtual exhibits produced by a wide range of
creators, from museums, allied organizations as well as individuals.” 155 For
McKeown as well, “transposing the museum into the digital domain (…)
facilitates a whole new approach to interpretation such as offering alternative
views.” 156 This shows that museum professionals right from the beginnings of
the Web, believed in its potential to transform the museum into a more visitor
driven institution. However, during times of continuing development of
museums’ websites, “it is still not clear,” as Roberta Buiani writes in 2003,
“whether the existence of the virtual museum will produce a final transformation
of the museum as we know it, or, on the contrary, it will use Internet tools in a
way that serve its traditional goals.” 157
Nevertheless, there is evidence which suggests that some online museums are
moving towards the development of services and tools which have the potential
to transform museum practice – a museum practice which places the user rather
than the collection at the centre. One of the things one can observe is that
developers of museum websites recognized the potential to foster user
participation and to use the Web as a way to cater to specific target audiences
153 Eilean Hooper-Greenhill. Museum education: past, present and future. Towards the Museum
of the Future. New European Perspectives. Ed. Roger Miles and Lauro Zavala. (London/New
York: Routledge, 1994) pp. 133-146, (p.134).
154 Werner Schweibenz, ‘Das virtuelle Museum. Überlegungen zum Begriff und Wesen des
Museums im Internet’ Conference Proceedings of the MAI-Tagung (Museums and the Internet,
2001) www.mai-tagung.de/Maitagung+2001/schweibenz.pdf (12.2.2005).
155 Dietz et.al. Virtual Museum (of Canada): The Next Generation, published by the
Canadian Heritage Network (CHIN) http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Members/Rethinking_Group/
(as of 20.4.2005).
156 Roy McKeown, ‘Accessing the virtual museum: bringing museum information into
cyberspace’ in The New Review of Information Networking (2003) pp.40-52 (p.42).
157 Roberta Buiani, ‘Virtual museums and the Web: a dilemma of compatibility?’.
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