Familiarity Breeds Content: knowledge and effect in museums on the Web

The papers presented at the seventh Museums and the Web Conference reveal that the technologies of the World Wide Web have – over the past ten years – significantly influenced the business of museums and changed how it is conducted. This introduction to the Selected Papers volume in print focuses on developments in knowledge representation, interface design, program presentation and learning theory, evaluation, the techniques supporting virtual visiting, and multi-channel information delivery. In the conference itself, an even wider set of issues were addressed. Throughout, what is clear is the speed with which a new communication genre is evolving and the radical impact that ubiquitous electronic delivery is having on a cultural institution type that, during its first two centuries of existence, was largely unchanged by technology.