The Museum Web Minerals project is based on a need to make the vast collection of relics and items of interest of the Virginia Tech Museum of Natural History easily accessible to large numbers of people. Despite possessing a very impressive compilation of objects, limited floor space and hours of operation prevent public access to a majority of the Museum's artifacts.
The Museum Web Minerals project from spring was a first step towards making these items widely available to the general public using computer technology and the World Wide Web. This project focused on just one area of the museum (i.e., the museum's mineral collection) while laying the groundwork for future projects. To enable public access to the museum's collection of minerals, a web page was designed to allow users to access the minerals online. Software was prototyped, but needs to be extended and refined.
The plan to extend that work is as follows: Each mineral in the online collection will possess a rotatable image of the mineral along with accompanying information about the mineral similar to an encyclopedia article and links to further information of interest. Such features as a glossary/index and searching capabilities will aid the ease of use of the overall collection. Due to the large number of minerals assembled in the museum's collection, not all minerals will be included in the initial online offering. However, detailed instructions, with possibly macros/wizards that will speed the process of creating the finished product (web page and image) for each mineral will be given to the sponsor upon project completion. The exact number of minerals to be included in the original online collection will be determined through discussion early in the semester.
Another possible project is to formulate a plan for applying digital library technology, possibly in response to the call for proposals of the Institute of Museum and Library Services with online application guidelines.