Small Museum Digitizes Collection

A couple of years ago the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas began to digitize its collection. They did this for several reasons: to serve the students, to reach out to a broader audience and to gain equal footing with major museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Watch this brief news report from 2005 to see the digitization process in progress. Please click on the following to view: http://www.6newslawrence.com/video/2005/07/19... Then, you will need to search Spencer Art Museum Digitizes.

Check out the Spencer Museum's website at: http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/

A Quick Visit to mfa.org and I'm a Convert

A quick visit to the Museum of Fine Arts at mfa.org and I'm a convert! After all this talk of the pros and cons of digitization I thought I'd check out how museums are using their digitized collections. I came across the Virtual Tours and clicked on Art of the Japanese Postcard: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection at the MFA which was on view from March 10 - June 6, 2004. Lauder donated his collection of 20,000 Japanese postcards to the MFA and I just looked at over 200 of them with complete labels on-line. This is a great example of the benefits of digitization. I did not see this exhibit in person but was able to see a majority of the postcards featured in the exhibit three years later. There are other virtual tours available too at: www.mfa.org/tours/package.asp?key=59.

This postcard, To Tomita Beach, dates from 1936.

As a Teacher I Utilize Digitized Collections

I feel like I may be suffering from multiple personality disorder. Within me I have the museum visitor, the museum studies student and the teacher. After reading the MIT forum, I was reminded of all of the assignments I have created from my students based upon museum websites and on-line sources. I have had my students go on virtual visits to museums and review the sites. One very successful assignment was part of a museum visit field trip to New York City that I took my Art History students on a couple of summers ago. I asked my students to each select one work of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's on-line collections data base and one from the Museum of Modern Art's on-line collections data base. The objective of the assignment was to research a work of art they were interested in before we visited the museum and then give a gallery talk about the work of art once they found it in the museum and had the chance to see it in person.

I must say this was an extremely dedicated and motivated group of students. They had to prepare this assignment in advance (over their summer vacation - the majority of them had just graduated) in order to give their gallery talks on their selected work of art in the museums. They took it seriously, utilized the on-line sources and gave excellent presentations to our group.

As a teacher, as a student and as a museum visitor I realize that the digitization of museum collections is an invaluable resource and provides many with the opportunity to see exhibits and works of art they may never have the opportunity to see in person. I just want to be able to see the actual work or art in person when I go to a museum. And I hope that people will continue to go to museums in person and use the on-line resources to prepare for their visits and follow-up on their visits afterwords.

"Nothing Substitutes for the Real Object"

I just read the MIT communications forum from March 8, 2001 titled "The Digital Museum." This forum was compiled by Brad Seawell and featured speakers including Lori Gross (pictured on the left), Director of MIT based Museum Loan Network and Terry Martin, Director of the Harvard Law Library. Based upon this compilation, it became clear to me that libraries have been at the forefront of the digitization of their collections and a number of museum representatives attended this forum in order to learn from them and pose questions.

This forum touched upon a number of issues that I'm interested in and relate to the topic of digitization. For example, Lori Gross stated, "...predictions made five years ago that digital replicas of objects would make visiting museums obsolete have proven false, and that museum crowds are growing along with web access to museum collections."

The speakers for the most part seemed to agree that the digitization of their collections was extremely helpful for researchers, provided numerous projects for teachers and students and made their collections accessible to the majority of people who may never have the opportunity to visit museums in person.

The topic of deacessioning and selling objects from museums' collections is an extremely controversial one. After stating that there are "...too many museums..." and "...not every object deserves to be venerated...," Terry Martin, Director of the Harvard Law Library stated, "Why not sell off some of the stuff and use part of the purchase price to digitize the artifact; the buyer can take the original while its image would be available on the net." I'm sure this line of thinking put some people on edge and provoked others to consider it. Do you think such a proposal is ethical?

I must agree with the comment that Lori Gross concluded with. She stated, "Well, virtual museums are wonderfully important and exciting. But when all is said and done, nothing substitutes for the real object."

To read the complete compilation go to http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/digitalmuseum.html

And, check out MIT's Museum Loan Network which promotes collection sharing where you can examine objects from different angles if you have The Live Picture Zoom Viewer 3.2 for Windows 95/NT and Macintosh at: http://amps-tools.mit.edu/mln/main_about.html

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

When visiting the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK this past summer I noticed a postcard in the gift shop of William Blake's The Tyger. I immediately realized this must be one of the highlights of their collection. I was on a mission - to see Blake's famous poem and watercolor illustration of the tiger in person. Based upon the map, I found the galleries where it should have been on display. But, this delicate work of art was no where to be found. I looked under all the pieces of red velvet overlays protecting the works on paper from the light in their display cases. Still the illusive tiger alluded me. I asked one of the guards and she told me to follow her. My excitement was building as I followed in her footsteps. She wasn't able to find it either. She then determined it wasn't on view but offered me the possibility of viewing it on their digital database collection. I must admit, I was disappointed because like a collector wants to purchase an authentic object, I wanted to see the real thing. I was also told I could make an appointment, but like most tourists I was pressed for time. As a result of this experience, I began to contemplate the issues of digitization, conservation and preservation, the visitor's museum experience and museum attendance which all seem interconnected.

For more on the Fitwilliam Museum's collection go to: www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk

This is William Blake's (1757 -1827) The Tyger. The last stanza reads:

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright.

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry

If you were at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK, would you want to see the actual page or would you be OK with looking at the digitized version in the museum knowing that for preservation purposes the actual page needs to be kept in storage?

First blog post.

As a museum studies student, I have been grappling with this issue of digitization of museum collections. I realize it is an invaluable option for museums today in order to catalog and preserve their collections. Yet, will this cause a decrease in museum attendance due to disappointment on the visitors' part or will people just visit collections on-line?