September 19, 2008

Artefacts to go online

Museums seem to be those old fashioned places where tourists go, whereas these are places that often chart the history of the country and contain many references to the social growth of the people.

Yet these fabulous buildings and contents are virtually wasted because schools no longer visit them because it is too far to travel or they cannot arrange trips. But now the museums are fighting back by offering their contents for viewing online.

This has been done in the States successfully and the latest one to join this trend is the Smithsonian Institution, they intend to make their artefacts available for viewing online, all 137 million of them.

This means that access to these types of organisations are no longer limited to travel distance, in fact whole lessons can be based around the exhibits bringing history into the classroom.

Source [CNN]