Intranets: Using Web Tools to Facilitate Communication and Develop Integrated Access to Museum Information

This session will explore some of the ways museums have begun to use web tools to create integrated information systems for access to limited audiences both inside and outside the museum. As with any new technology implementation, offer both new opportunities and cause new problems. The session will look at both sides of these new approaches from a museum perspective. We will focus on three areas in particular: 1) information access and distribution problems which can be addressed by web-based integrated systems, 2) a few of the nuts and bolts of creating such systems, and 3) the issues raised by greater access to information from both a technical and an organizational perspective.