Interactive and Hypermedia in Museums

Museums provide an opportunity to interact with artifacts, specimens, and realia from beyond our everyday experience. Their holdings include that which is unique, remote, or difficult to perceive, and are therefore exhibited to us with interpretive text, images and sounds. The museum is a multimedia experience. Since the early 20th century museums have strived to be more than "cabinets of curiosities" to be viewed passively. In this volume we witness the latest efforts to interact more assertively with visitors, but despite the introduction of a new technology, they represent a continuity more than a radical departure.