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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 April 2000 Issue No. 477 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 April 2000 Issue No. 477
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Plain Talk
By Mursi Saad El-Din
There seems to be no end to what the Internet can do. As if the hundreds of programmes and services it offers to users all over the world are not enough, now there are also armchair museums.
Museum Without Walls is the title of the new site with links to about 33,000 museums and galleries worldwide. It will provide access to almost all museums and so that cybertourists can book tickets, take virtual tours of exhibits and buy souvenirs online. It includes institutions like the British Museum, Fitswilliam Museum at Cambridge and the Victoria and Albert, as well as 10,000 other European collections.
Already a 50-million publicity campaign has started. The cost will be paid by the museums themselves in an effort to attract the internet generation. Prints, posters and visual advertisements have already been prepared, together with direct mail. A spokesman for the project told the Independent that "this will go against the dusty image of museums that no one wants to go to."
This project is the brain child of an American investment fund manager, who has this to say about it: "It will provide consumers, publishers, museum professionals, educators and learners of all ages with secure and centralised access to global museum resources."
Comments have been coming from different quarters, all praising the idea. One such comment was: "If you were not able to travel to the Guggenheim you could take a virtual tour, maybe check out a new exhibit and buy a souvenir. It is the full museum experience."
The promoters of the project made it clear that the site was not designed to replace but complement conventional museum visiting. "You'll never be able to see all the things you want to see. We want to bring the same exhibit in West Texas to someone in Eastern Europe who will never have the chance to go there."
What to make of these armchair museums? The term armchair travel has come into usage since the development of communication technology which makes the world a small village, as the saying goes. Recently the Royal Shakespeare Company agreed to broadcast popular plays of the Bard on the Internet. Their aim was to capture the Internet generation who seldom go to see a live performance of Shakespeare.
One point which has impressed me about this new project is its role in bringing different cultures together. This will give a novel meaning to the globalisation of culture -- a term which seems to worry a number of intellectuals these days. I have always believed that there is some kind of misunderstanding of the term, one that can be applied to industry, agriculture and medicine but not to culture.
Another point I would like to raise: where are our museums in this project? Whether the Egyptian Museum, the Coptic Museum or the Islamic Museum as well as the newly established Nubia Museum can form an impressive Egyptian contribution to this project. I am sure that the inclusion of these museums will enhance tourism in Egypt too -- a worthy cause, given the fact that the transfer of both information and tourists will be much faster in the next century. I make these assertions because ultimately it must be conceded that, whatever the Internet can offer, there is nothing like the real thing -- a general axiom that applies to all things vital including museums, even if what museums have to offer is frequently very far from life.
Museums can nonetheless be among the most vital experiences. And the Internet will make them more so.
