Voices of the Future interview with Gail and Barry Lord

[headstate]

Doesn't this conversation miss the obvious: next generation museums already exist on-line, created informally by ordinary people documenting the histories of whatever they value? Museums as physical places need to be maintained, so, perhaps they are now outmoded? There are few museums that allow you to touch their objects and displays so there's not much difference between something in a glass vitrine as opposed to it being on the internet ... And on-line, as we know, is free.

[feekusgeekus]

I find this comment by headstate simply incredible! Their experience of sitting in front of a computer looking at a low resolution image of an artefact might be no different than going to to a real location and having a rich multi sensory experience, but I can assure them that most people will find the real thing infinitely more rewarding. Museum collections deal in real objects with real histories connected with real people and are not some sort of Facebook experience.