Virtual museum a door to ASEAN collections
Virtual museum a door to ASEAN collections
By Amir Sidharta
JAKARTA (JP): Those familiar with "the corridor" in Michael Crichton's Disclosure will be able to imagine the ultimate experience of accessing museum exhibits through a computer. Some time in the future, as virtual reality technology progresses, it will be possible to walk through a museum and see simulated exhibits from a virtual reality station in your own room.
Director of the Asian Cultural History Program at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, Dr. Paul Taylor, delivered his Virtual Museum of ASEAN at the Museum of Conception of the Proclamation of Independence in Central Jakarta, on Tuesday, March 28. Taylor was accompanied by physical anthropologist and statistician of the Museum of Natural History's Department of Anthropology Dr. Bruno Frolich. He is Taylor's colleague and has been instrumental in organizing the project.
A virtual museum would consist of images, essays, narrations and data found in museums which could be accessed on CD-ROM and other information-storage devices. It would allow scholars and novices to browse through thousands of images and associated information from collections in Southeast Asia, or anywhere else, including photographs, films, interactive maps, time lines, essays and glossaries from a PC.
The collection would be compiled by scanning photographic images of the museum objects and entering related data into a database system which would be able to handle both text and images. A sophisticated high-resolution scanner is currently being developed at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in the American state of New York. The scanner is able to scan anything from a small 35mm slide to three-dimensional large objects.
Not new
The idea of a virtual museum is by no means new. While reverting to America Online through my modem via Macintosh computer during cold winter days in Washington D.C., I came across their virtual version of the Smithsonian museums. Through the interface that was available at the time, one could wander into certain departments and obtain information about the exhibits at the Smithsonian.
In one of the classes I attended while receiving my museum training at the George Washington University, William Lynch from the university's Education Computer Lab presented The Virtual Historic House interactive computer program that would allow elderly visitors and visitors with disabilities complete access to museums -- particularly small museums -- that were not yet able to provide adequate facilities to accommodate them.
He had created a virtual model of the museum and placed images of artifacts within the computer generated space. People could view and wander through each room and encounter the objects via a computer monitor.
Not all museums are financially able to comply with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide every visitor equal access to exhibits. Many historical house museums can't afford or justify providing costly facilities, like elevators, for the small number of disabled visitors because they desperately need funds just to keep their museums running.
Such a computer program -- although a poor substitute -- offers the best alternative to the real museum experience.
Many museums in the United States have started to offer Internet users access to their collections. Reproductions of the rare historical documents of the Library of Congress can be viewed on the Internet. In addition, the library has also made available sets of images and related information from actual exhibits held at the library, including reproductions from the Vatican Library and sections of the 2,000 year old Dead Sea Scrolls. The Smithsonian has several online locations, like the institution itself, which also consists of several museums scattered around several different locations. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. offers Internet users to search through a database of basic information about its vast collection of 1,600 works of art.
Other smaller museums, like the University of California at Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology, Jane Adam's Hull House Museum in Chicago, the California Museum of Photography, The Bishop Museum in Honolulu, have also started to provide online services through the Internet.
Tremendous
Computers offer tremendous possibilities for the museum world. Objects can be photographed or video recorded and then converted into still or moving digital images. Digital recordings of museum collections have been done at certain museums as part of their cataloging efforts. Advances in computer aided design and modeling enable objects and spaces to be recreated.
Interactive interfaces such as those offered by online services, allow progressive selection on the part of the user to the available options. For example, a virtual museum could offer a choice of sections into which visitors could enter. At a touch of a button one would enter the Natural History department of the museum. Then the user could select the Insect Room out of the list of available exhibition rooms. Once in the Insect Room, one could choose from a selection of cases including butterflies, ants, bees and so forth. The user could consult the genealogical chart of the order or retrieve information about individual species.
The novelty of an interactive computer program will make it more user friendly than daunting museums. Indonesian children hate the word "don't", and Indonesian museums are filled with "don'ts". "Don't touch", we are constantly reminded. In the virtual museum touching is a major requirement. You actively search for information by selecting items in the directories or menus.
The virtual museum also eliminates all the problems Indonesians expect when visiting a museum, such as having to drive through chaotic traffic, having to buy the entrance ticket, having to make sure that you keep the ticket just in case they check, having to hand your belongings to the coat room clerk, having to face up to security guards who tell you not to run, not to eat and to be quiet.
At the virtual museum you can't run. You have to sit and relax, with your hands fixed on the keyboard of your computer, waiting to respond to the choices that appear on the next menu. You might even be able to eat as long as no one tells on you. You can scream all you like, if it gets that exciting.
The virtual museum is most likely to contain a selected collection, so it wouldn't be as boring as going to Indonesian museums which tend to be crammed with all sorts of objects. If you don't like a room, you are immediately taken to another room with the punch of a few buttons.
Entering the virtual museum is a fun. You won't get scared in the virtual museum. No need to worry about the ghosts that Indonesians claim haunt most of Jakarta's museums. No need to worry about any mess apart from your own. The virtual museum is always as clean as your computer.
Paul Taylor asked what museum projects IBM could help support here, I proposed the idea of a virtual museum of Indonesia. It could be compiled from a network of museum collections from the entire archipelago linked through the Internet. Virtual museums, by virtue of their novelty, would no doubt be attractive. Indonesians would be geared to explore what the museum has to offer.
Research potential
The possibilities of a virtual museum of Indonesia are mind- boggling. Imagine yourself roaming through museums in Kalimantan or Irian Jaya from your desk in Jakarta or even Washington.
It is hard for Indonesian museum staff to keep track of their collections. A database including every object in the collection available through the Internet or on CD-ROM would be beneficial to Indonesian museums. The virtual museum offers an excellent tool for collection management.
It also enables an open exchange of information among museums and institutions. Instead of having to visit museums scattered all around Indonesia, anyone could easily access any museum collection. The system also makes it easier to conduct comparative studies among similar objects scattered around the world.
"The system would allow a small museum to obtain images and information on an object which is in a museum in another province or another country without having to physically move the object," said Taylor. From his office in Washington, he would be able to study an object kept in a museum in Ambon.
Before the Virtual Museum of ASEAN project began, Paul Taylor was already entering the Philippine collection at the Smithsonian onto compact disks, as part of a project instigated by researcher Patricia Afable from the National Museum of Natural History. The Philippines was interested in making more use of the little-known collection, and is working on producing a CD-ROM called The Philippine Heritage Collection: a Smithsonian Resource Guide.
Taylor expanded the project to include museums in the ASEAN region, but has limited the scope to the best collections as a start. He started the project by managing the Smithsonian's collection from the ASEAN region.
A portion of the William L. Abbott collection at the National Museum of Natural History has been processed. Abbott was a doctor from Philadelphia who explored Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia between 1887 to 1909. At the end of the expedition he was active in Nias, North Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Irian Jaya, collecting ethnographic objects and taking photographs for the Smithsonian. Half of the 1,800 photographs he took have been scanned, stored in the project's computer system and transferred onto CD-ROM.
Next on the list is the collection of Matthew Stirling. Stirling led an important expedition along the Mamberamo River in Irian Jaya in 1926. "Our studies of his collections would include cooperating with museum in Irian Jaya in an effort to obtain new documentation about the collection of tribes in Irian Jaya visited by Stirling," Taylor explained.
The Virtual Museum of ASEAN would not end with the collections of Abbott and Stirling. "We plan to enter all the materials in collections from ASEAN countries at the Smithsonian Institution and make them available via the Internet or compact disks. To make this happen, of course, sound cooperation among our museums and institutions is needed," Taylor said. Artifacts from a Thai exhibit being prepared by Taylor's wife, Lisa McQuail, will soon be entered into the system.
"If virtual museums are so much fun, won't they make real museums obsolete?" a question was raised after the presentation. In his answer, Taylor compared the museum to a novel. "When they make movies out of books, the number of the readers of the book increases rather than decreases," he explained.
Once available through the Internet, the Virtual Museum of ASEAN would indeed be a great marketing device. It would introduce Internet users to the number of museums that exist in the region and also attract them to visit museums with interesting collections.