The Museum of London is working to develop a new e-learning project called Exploring 20th Century London, reports PublicTechnology.net. The project, funded by DCF/Hub, is in partnership with London’s Transport Museum and three other London museums. The goal is to create an integrated database of selected records from each museum’s collection featuring sound, film files, and images.
The Museum of London’s official website currently offers a wide array of features, including description of all the museum’s galleries and a learning centre where students, parents, and teachers can download educational packets. The Exploring 20th Century London site should enhance the interactivity of the current website, as it will giver users the option to access more than text. This is in line with a current trend that sees more museums using new media technology on their websites. The Tate Britain website, which we reported on a few months back, allows users to take a flash tour of the museum.
The Museum of London is holding a seminar on May 10th to discuss the new, online project. The seminar will feature speakers from MLA, ALM London, and the London Museums Hub. The aim is to gather information from regional museums, archives and libraries that will better prepare the Exploring 20th Century London project team on how the site can best serve its users. Although the site stands to benefit from the seminar, one questions why they don’t launch the site sooner and continue to improve it after its launch. There is a tendency to want to deliver grand, fully realised projects, but many great projects have started small and grown over time.