Online Museums

Posted by Bill on Friday, August 31, 2007   |   No Comments

There was a time not so long ago that visiting a museum meant actually traveling to a physical location and touring a brick-and-mortar place housing a collection of some sort. And I guess all collections still have be physically housed some place. But the visiting part? The Internet has changed that for all time, for both visitors and museum operators.

The change has brought about a number of advantages . . . and clearly, some drawbacks. For example, there’s nothing like being able to spend time looking at artifacts from all angles and reading in detail all the posted information. Looking at a one-dimensional image online is just not the same. Still, it does expand your options.

By taking advantage of online museums, you can “taste” a great variety even though you may not be able to savor them as you do when you actually visit. And online collections allow you to visit a much wider selection of museums anywhere in the world. If they’re on the Internet, visiting them is as simple as typing in a Web address.

From the collector’s point of view, online museums make anything possible. Let’s say you inherit a handful of old salt and pepper shakers from your grandmother. You become fascinated with these and begin to look for more. Before you know it, it’s a full-fledged hobby, then a passion. Your collection is soon the talk of all your friends, and the local newspaper comes knocking. Sooner or later, someone says casually, “You ought to open a museum to share these.”

That’s a scenario that has been repeated over the years with different collectibles. For many collectors, the story ends when they get to the museum part. Understandably, they have no interest in establishing and staffing a physical “museum.” But the Internet has made a “virtual museum” easy as pie. Now, if you really want to share your collection—and rub shoulders online with like-minded collectors—the online museum is the way to do it. Quickly, inexpensively and simply.

Obviously, an online museum has limited revenue potential, but most collectors have built their collections with little regard for that anyway. And it’s always possible to have both an online museum and a real, physical location open for paying customers if that’s your desire.

So where can you find these online collections and begin to sample modern virtual museums? Just for fun, you might try here. It will link you to a limited selection: Unusual Museums of the Internet. Here you will find collections celebrating flashlights, cigar box art, owls, crabs, wooden nickels, glass buttons, British lawnmowers, slot machines, toilets and toasters—to name a few.

Also visit the Museum of Online Museums. This is a far broader and more sophisticated collection, but it has a few lighter offerings, too. Among them are the World Carrot Museum, the Museum of Antique Fishing Lures, Match World, Museum of Early LCD Watches and the World of Fruit Labels.

What a world we live in, eh? Remember, that provocative advertising question, “Where do you want to go today?” It’s a perfect clincher for this post—and for the whole anything-at-your-fingertips world we enjoy today, courtesy of a technology that didn’t even exist a handful of years ago.

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