Editorial: Museums on the Web

The Special Issue ‘Museums on the Web: Exploring the Past for the Future’ offers new perspectives on the histories of museums on the web and aims to provide a wide range of (inter)disciplinary perspectives, including from museology, history, computer science, and others. Many of the articles offer interdisciplinary approaches, as we welcomed authors to select and mix methodologies and resources as they see fit, including both traditional and web-archival resources. We have also endeavored to balance insights from academics, curators, and museum professionals. It was essential for us to present a range of voices to offer fresh and new perspectives on the histories of ‘Museums on the Web.’

At the time the call for this Special Issue was developed, there was a common concern among museums to reflect on their online presence. Due to lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, museums intensified their digital activities, highlighting the importance of the web for engaging with audiences. Furthermore, in the fast-changing digital landscape, museums encountered new challenges, such as the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the metaverse, and the semantic web. The pressing need for digital transformation was keenly felt throughout the sector, and simultaneously, there was momentum for a re-examination of “Museums on the Web.”

The call also coincided with the 25th anniversary of MuseWeb (formerly “Museums on the Web”), a leading international research program that advances research within digital heritage practice. This offered an opportunity to reach out to the field with the request to assess the progress made so far and to highlight especially those (unfolding) moments that may inspire future developments. By engaging with the past, we can enhance our understanding of how museums are functioning today and offer new perspectives for the future. This Special Issue covers both foundational work by early internet pioneers, as well as the ruptures and continuities throughout the history of museums on the web. It provides valuable insights into how museums have responded to emerging technologies over time and operated in an ever-evolving digital landscape. These insights can serve as vantage points for new, innovative approaches.

In order to showcase the diversity of research within this field, this issue aims to provide a wide range of (inter)disciplinary perspectives, including from museology, history, computer science, and others. Many of the articles offer interdisciplinary approaches, as we welcomed authors to select and mix methodologies and resources as they saw fit, including both traditional and web-archival resources. We have also endeavored to balance insights from academics, curators, and museum professionals. It was essential for us to present a range of voices to offer fresh and new perspectives on the histories of “Museums on the Web.” Our aim was not to offer a comprehensive account; instead, this Special Issue addresses some topics that felt urgently needed attention, which we will further outline below.

The history of virtual museums

This Special Issue begins with two papers exploring the history of virtual museums. Over the past decades, virtual museums developed alongside technological advancements within the World Wide Web. While adopting new technologies, cultural objects have been ordered and represented in innovative ways. The articles in this section provide insights into pioneering case studies, alongside development of essential primary source material, and also reflections on the challenges of preserving pioneering virtual museums.

The article by Jonathan Bowen, Ann Borda, Giuliano Gaia, and Stefania Boiano provides firsthand insights from practitioners involved in developing websites of Science Museums from the mid-1990s until the early 2000s. The article discusses both the challenges faced at the time that the Web was in its early stages, as well as offering reflections on how pioneering virtual museums could be considered models for future developments. In 1995, the Virtual Museum of Computing (VMoC) was established to display the history of computing. It was part of the Virtual Library, established by Tim Berners-Lee as a directory of the web before search engines were available. Today, this case study offers valuable insights into how the web offered potential for indexing museum collections. The second case study, the Science Museum in London, was the first museum with its own web server and a pioneer in developing innovative curatorial models for virtual exhibitions. In 1998, the museum launched its first pioneering virtual exhibitions, the “Exhiblets,” solely presented online, within a 3D-modeled, virtual environment. In 2004, the “Ingenious project” built further on these first experiments. It gave the audience access to both museum and library collections. This database formed the foundation for virtual exhibitions in which audiences were invited to create their own stories. The virtual environment provided new opportunities for integrating participatory cultures within the curatorial process. The Web also offered a new architectural space, in which art and artifacts could be exhibited in an immersive and interactive environment. The Museum of Science and Technology in Milan experimented with these new developments by establishing a pioneering virtual exhibition that displayed animated representations of Leonardo da Vinci’s machines.

The second article, an interview with Marie Williams Chant (Director of Archives and Special Projects at the Feminist Institute in New York) by Ismini Kyritsis and Karin de Wild, offers insights into the efforts of the Feminist Institute to preserve the International Museum of Women. Founded in 1985 as the Women’s Heritage Museum, this institution emerged to highlight the achievements of women around the world. In the early years of its existence, the museum aspired to establish itself within a physical building within San Francisco—yet this project was never realized. Instead, the International Museum of Women evolved into a virtual museum with global outreach. Through establishing partnerships with tech companies and global organizations, this case study provides insights into the potential of online technologies to engage a global audience and facilitate the sharing of stories worldwide. In order to safeguard the museum’s legacy and its groundbreaking digital exhibitions, the Feminist Institute in New York launched a digital preservation initiative to ensure the accessibility and long-term sustainability of the International Museum of Women website. This interview also provides firsthand insights into this initiative and the efforts to preserve the museum’s legacies.

Museums going virtual during the Covid-19 pandemic

The call for this Special Issue was released not long after the Covid-19 pandemic ended. Faced, in many cases, with the closure of their buildings during lockdown periods, museums turned to develop their online presence. In this second section, authors further reflect on how the pandemic fuelled a shift from an “in-person” to an “online” experience of museums, and how this has had a significant impact on museums, not only during the pandemic (2019–2023) but also afterwards.

In the first paper, Amanda Tinker further analyzes how this influenced access to artworks. In both literature and the museum itself, the display of the artwork within the (physical) gallery is prioritized. However, during the pandemic, we encountered, for the first time, that art needed to be solely experienced online, which opened up alternatives for art appreciation and understanding. Undoubtedly, online access causes a loss of (multi-)sensory experiences; however, this paper also addresses the opportunities of displaying art within a dynamic and participatory environment, in which the artwork can be experienced alongside, for example, audio podcasts, videos, and scans.

From a British perspective, the next paper shifts to developments within the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (China). Minying Zhang and Peng Liu investigate the development of online exhibitions in six leading museums within this area, providing insights into both challenges and future opportunities. During the pandemic, these six museums actively continued to display their collections within high-quality online exhibitions. This led to various new insights—for instance, a better understanding of how online exhibitions can enhance making art collections accessible. Online exhibitions can offer new forms of inclusivity and engage diverse audiences, catering to specific needs and abilities. Extending beyond the museum’s physical location also offers opportunities for reaching out to a wider audience from more remote areas. The paper also addresses how the pandemic led to new collaborations between museums and social media platforms and, more generally, accelerated the digital transformation within these museums.

Both papers conclude that the pandemic will most likely have a longer term effect on curatorial practices within museums. The lockdowns required a rapid response from museums to represent art online, yet this also offered an opportunity to further explore the potential of the online spaces in which art can be experienced in new ways. This may ultimately strengthen links between online and offline exhibitions and open up new perspectives for hybrid experiences of art and artifacts in the future.

Digital curation and exhibition design in virtual museums

Acceptance of the innovations in the exhibition design and implementation of the experimental curatorial approaches led to the shift in the digital collections’ representation online. Often the backstage of this experience remains hidden from side observation. This Special issue includes two articles in this section that focus on several key studies examining virtual exhibitions and associated digital curatorial practices. They share insights into the challenges, and intellectual and technological solutions for designing virtual museums and wider public outreach.

The paper “Header/footer gallery: creating and sustaining an online only art gallery” by Rene Alberto G. Cepeda and Constanza Salazar explores the “Header/Footer Gallery” as a case study for analyzing how the virtual exhibition space has changed over time. The Header/Footer Gallery was established in 2020 and has since then invited guest curators to present media artworks by emerging artists. The paper analyzes how virtual exhibitions are designed and curated. Inevitably, the curators face challenges that include not only technical problems, such as the selection of digital platforms, but also socio-cultural ones, such as how to keep the public actively engaged with art. Utilizing the online environment can also help rethink selection processes for choosing art. Reflection on the “Flesh Spaces” exhibition provides a foundation for exploring the advantages and disadvantages of curating an exhibition about cyberfeminism through an open call process. The second case study suggests the value of inviting a permanent curator to achieve more structured and synchronized efforts to organize an exhibition. Coordination and standardization of workflows were aligned with exploration of non-conventional curatorial practices such as creation dynamic exhibitions and implementing interactive narratives. Both case studies explore how virtual exhibitions can promote inclusivity, address and interpret significant and challenging subject matter, and allow space for experimentation in the process of curating and designing a virtual exhibition.

The second paper in this section is an interview with Willred Dallto, a founder and curator of the Digital Pierrot Museum. The museum initially launched in 2018 as a physical exhibition in Pristina, Kosovo. During the pandemic, the exhibition was transferred into the virtual realm through digitization and gamification. In the interview, Willred Dallto describes the main vision behind the Digital Pierrot Museum and its development stages, and outlines associated challenges. Designing the digital museum required collaborative efforts to meticulously develop the interface and appearance, to implement the floor plans and trajectories for exploring the museum in a 3D model and eventually bringing it into virtual reality (VR). The paper also discusses strategies for finding funding to support the project, the benefits of integrating Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) technology in the Digital Pierrot Museum and the ways how to engage the public during on-site promotional events. Willred Dallto concludes the interview by suggesting future developments, leveraging a financially self-sustainable model and promoting openness for everyone.

Openness

The two articles in this section discuss approaches to “openness” in the context of cultural heritage institutions and the virtual museum, and the publication of digitized collections on the Web. From different perspectives, the authors examine how this has also impacted debates within the wider field of museum studies and practice. These thought-provoking articles highlight key advancements, modes, and principles of openness, exploring their implications for museology in the future.

The article “Rethinking Openness: A Social Constructivist Approach to the Promises of the New Museology” by Tiancheng Leo Cao thoroughly explores the conceptual framework of openness and its evolution over the past two decades. It suggests that these transformative processes were not merely technological in nature, driven solely by the development of digital technologies and the spread of the World Wide Web, but also ideological. The study draws on the theory of social construction of technology (SCOT) and analytical methods to examine how the perspectives and practices of museum professionals have changed over time. The paper particularly focuses on the impact of “new museology” principles on the way museums understand and apply the idea of openness within institutional contexts. Central to the paper is the Museums and the Web conference, which was first held in 1997 and continues to provide a substantial historical perspective with global reach and diverse participation of professionals from various intersecting fields beyond museum practices and studies alone. By providing a rigorous content analysis of papers presented at the Museums and the Web conference between 1997 and 2020, Tiancheng Leo Cao offers a comprehensive overview of how our understanding of openness in museums has changed or evolved and shares empirical evidence that demonstrates how the theory of new museology has transitioned from discourse to practice in the field.

As museums continue to move further into the digital realm, they are unlocking innovative ways to display collections, share knowledge, and engage communities, amplifying their commitment to openness using digital platforms. However, this digital transition also brings challenges and can perpetuate biases, which can even reinforce “digital divides.” The paper “How ‘Open’ are Australian Museums? A Review through the Lens of Copyright Governance,” by Paul Arthur, Lydia Hearn, Isabel Smith, and Nikos Koutras, considers how museums in Australia face new copyright challenges in relation to use and reuse of digitized collections. These include, but are not limited to, issues such as slow or partial adoption of open access policies, lack of open online availability of digitized collections, licensing issues, restrictive copyright exemptions, operational costs, and other tensions. The paper begins by reflecting on how developments in the history of copyright law have implications for the current barriers to the democratization of knowledge and open access to cultural heritage content. The authors also investigate best practices and suggest ways forward for a more equitable and flexible use of cultural heritage data. The authors also investigate best practices and suggest ways forward for a more equitable and adaptable approach to museum heritage. These potential steps are grounded in revisiting the fundamental mission of museums, prioritizing open access, establishing legal guidelines and international agreements, implementing alternative dispute resolution processes, collaborating on licensing, and involving all stakeholders in supporting open initiatives in order to cultivate broader, diverse audiences.

Museums’ digital identities

Through embracing digital technologies, rooting digital presence, and acting beyond the physical walls, museums expand their social and cultural impact. The efficient expansion is aligned with the redefining of the museum’s identity in the digital realm. These issues are addressed in three articles in this Special Issue. The authors consider the concept of museums’ digital identity, determining key components, addressing brand strategies, and categorizing museum websites according to a range of essential characteristics.

The paper “Museums’ digital identity: Key components” by Nadezhda Povroznik concentrates on the conceptual framework of museums’ identity in the digital environment as a way to distinguish museums, their roles, values, and functions from other institutions and to translate and deliver these values via digital means. The author identifies the collective and individual manifestation of museums’ identity in relation to the virtual environment. Emphasizing the dynamic character of the identity and the interdependence of its components, the paper discusses the need to draw on historical perspectives to trace the shifts and changes that have led to current directions in museums’ development in the digital age.

Museums’ digital identity is also analyzed in the paper “Framing digital identities through social media in museums” by Maria Paula Arias. Utilizing the methodology of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the author considers museum brands as networks. Providing a thorough interdisciplinary literature review and focusing on social media networks, the article outlines the dichotomies between “internal” and “external” actors and between “physical” and “digital” in the process of positioning museums in terms of their online audiences. The author delineates the dynamic and performative spirit of museums’ identities and indicates the value of measuring relationships between actors using ANT to gain a deeper insight into the impact of social media on a museum’s brand.

Museums’ digital identity is manifested and communicated to online audiences through their websites, which perform as a central resource to display various content and museum activities digitally. The paper “A diachronic cluster analysis of Danish museum websites” by Mette Skov and Tanja Svarre, brings a historical perspective to the analysis of the Danish web domain. The researchers investigated 94 (2005) and 81 (2020) Danish museum websites by combining a diachronic approach and cluster analysis. The results point to new insights into how these museum websites have developed over time and the paper proposes an innovative typology for museum websites.

Conclusions

Taken together, the papers in this Special Issue add new insights to the understanding of museums’ presence on the web. Like other internet histories, this field is still emerging, thus involving numerous historiographical debates and future directions for exploration. However, some aspects stand out in which this Special Issue contributes to shaping the field of this history.

What we currently observe is the emergence of the “post-digital” condition in museum practices (Parry 2013). The digital realm is increasingly intertwined with the overall mission, practices, and experiences of museums. Consequently, there is no longer a seamless and clear distinction between digital and non-digital public outreach, as well as virtual and physical museums and galleries. Instead, museums are increasingly integrated into digital networks both within their physical galleries and beyond. The pandemic has accelerated this development in many museums. Lockdowns forced museums to reconsider how digital tools could help them fulfill their missions, leading to a digital transformation that will continue to have an impact even after the pandemic. Due to rapid technological advancements and the ease of digitizing and reproducing artworks, there is also an urgency to research and reflect on how to provide open access to cultural heritage (data) and further democratize knowledge.

It is also important to note that there is currently still a vast amount of original sources available. As history is still unfolding, gathering and preserving case studies are essential for future generations to understand the time period in which museums developed their web presence. This underscores the importance of including new case studies in this Special Issue, captured through a variety of theoretical approaches and methods (from oral history to archival studies, from qualitative to quantitative studies). This Special Issue does therefore include new historical accounts, as well as insights into the potential and limitations of theoretical approaches and methodological questions.

Acknowledgements

As guest-editors of the Special issue “Museums on the Web,” we would like to thank all the authors who submitted abstracts. We deeply appreciate the intellectual efforts and commitment of all the authors and the reviewers who went through this journey with us to make this special issue a success. Additionally, we would like to express our gratitude to chief editor Prof. Niels Brügger for the multilateral support and guidance throughout the publication process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karin de Wild

Karin de Wild is Assistant Professor in Contemporary Museum and Collection Studies at Leiden University (The Netherlands). Her research involves digital collections and the history of museums on the Web. Before joining Leiden University, she was a digital fellow in the “One by One” research at the University of Leicester (School of Museum Studies). She completed a Ph.D. in Digital Heritage at the University of Dundee (UK) and in her past life as curator and researcher, she collaborated with a wide range of museums including SFMOMA (US), Tate Modern (UK), the National Museum of World Cultures (NL) and the National Museums of Scotland (UK).

Nadezhda Povroznik

Nadezhda Povroznik is a Research Associate, at the Institute for History (at the Chair of Humanities Data Science and Methodology), at the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany), with more than 15 years of experience in the Digital Humanities field, with a focus on Digital History, Web History, and Virtual Museology, the author of the project on Digital History of Virtual Museums, the member of the Editorial board of the Journal of Digital History, and the Communication officer of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organisations (ADHO).