'Web Musing': Evaluating Museums on the Web from Learning Theory to Methodology

This paper will provide an update to ideas about the "real" experience of the museum communication and meaning system, its significance to museum "virtual" web development, and the conceptual and methodological implications for evaluation of museums' web work. It will attempt to weave together web evaluation and museological evaluation from both theoretical and applied perspectives. The particular frame of reference will be research and evaluation work conducted around the University of Toronto AMICO Testbed in 1998-99. A number of research methodologies are developed in the project in order to investigate the use of the AMICO Library in both a university and an art gallery setting. From the basis of this work, the paper will examine the evaluation and implications for use of an art-museum based digital image and information database delivered to the university environment through the web.