Virtual Museums

A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society. A museum is open to the public and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity. People often go to the museums for study, education and enjoyment.

Thanks to the VR technology, people can visit an exhibition without leaving their homes.A virtual museum is a digital entity that has all of the characteristics of a museum. With VR technology, virtual museums can enhance, complement the museum experience through personalization, interactivity and richness of content.

"Virtual museums can perform as the digital footprint of a physical museum, or can act independently, while maintaining the authoritative status as bestowed by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in its definition of a museum. In tandem with the ICOM mission of a physical museum, the virtual museum is also committed to public access; to both the knowledge systems imbedded in the collections and the systematic, and coherent organization of their display, as well as to their long-term preservation."

Q:do cultural websites can be virtual museums?

Let’s take an example.

Here is a website called "WebExhibits" (www.webexhibits.org) which presents educational pictures and introductions since 1999. This website defines itself “an interactive museum of science, humanities and culture” and it is also listed on Wikipedia among the virtual museum “pioneers”.

You can clink the link above and take a look. You will not find any exhibitions because it is actually a collection of educational web pages even though these web pages are on various kinds of topics. VR technology can't be found on this "archive".

Virtual museums are not catalogs of images and documents. They are supposed to bring the visitors immersive experience which you can tell from the picture below.