This session will look at the development of and participation in the new Learning With Museums project by the Canadian museum community and CHIN. This project enables museums of all sizes and at different stages of Web connectivity to reach educators nationwide. Kathleen Christensen will speak to these as a staff person of a small museum, with her own ambitions concerning her museum's website, developing it into an educational tool that enhances the school curriculum and promotes further understanding and appreciation of her museum's unique collections, programs and interpretative themes. Danielle Boily will discuss the development of the project from CHIN's perspective. Calum Ewing, from the Nova Scotia Museum, will discuss his role in the Learning with Museums project as well the importance for large-scale, multidisciplinary institutions to be involved in projects like this.

This session will present three case studies of digitization projects in museums, examining the challenges and successes in dealing with various types of collections: 3-D objects; textiles and costumes; and 2-D artworks. The three museums have developed their own approaches, based on the scanning technologies chosen, existing documentation resources, technological infrastructures, funding sources, staff experience, and the type of artifact collection.

Panel members will describe the issues in planning and implementation of their projects, from the perspective of collections managers and of curators. The session will address issues of technology, time constraints, lack of space, and staff training and knowledge, and will provide practical advice and solutions based on firsthand experience.

The session will be of interest to those planning a digitization project.

Speakers:

This session will focus on distributed access issues from both a natural history museum and a multidisciplinary museum perspective. Speakers will discuss topics such as locating various resources, new initiatives and other related issues.

Mark Graham will describe a new, on-line research survey that will collect up-to-date information about natural history institutions, including collections information and research activities. The results from this survey will eventually be accessible via the Web. This brief talk will explore the survey questionnaire and report on progress to date.

Gerald Fitzgerald will present a new initiative, FishNet, that involves accessing natural history collections information, fish data in this case, in a distributed environment.

Bruce McGillivray will discuss the biggest challenge in managing a multidisciplinary institution: not to assume all programs and collections are alike. Even within seemingly similar disciplines databases have a distinct look. Curators in these disciplines have different ideas about the need for and value of digitization of collections resources. Bruce will also discuss the development of ‘Virtual Exhibitions’ and the linkage of their databases with other institutions in a distributed environment and how the focus should not be on the product but on the goal of providing public access to collection resources.

Chair :

• Mark Graham, Director of Research Services, Canadian Museum of Nature

Speakers :

The speakers will explain how the organizations they represent address the challenge of producing digitized content (text and images). The main focus will be the digitization of the images from collections. Sister Juneau will discuss planning and financing issues in a small institution with several, diversified priorities. Mrs Simard will deal with the actions taken by the provincial association to facilitate the work of museum members, while taking into account the priorities of the different stakeholders. Jim Fox will give a brief overview of the exciting, new, online digitization course, "Capture your Collections: Planning and Implementing Digitization Projects".

Chair :

• Sylvia Priestley-Brown, Executive Director, Association Museums, New Brunswick

Speakers :