The Virtual Museum of Canada [VMC] is an initiative of the Cultural Heritage Information Network [CHIN] and the country’s museum community. For a number of years CHIN has been helping Canadian museums integrate information technology into their practices.
The Virtual Museum of Canada’s website states: “as an endless source of discoveries, virtualmuseum.ca is a unique interactive space that brings together Canadian museum collections and riches in a variety of thought-provoking and instructive contents. It’s the window on current museum news and the reference guide to planning an outing.”
Not only is the website a collection of multimedia exhibitions, it also contains an image gallery, teaching resources, a directory of museums and a lab where visitors can learn about exploratory projects and technologies. All of the exhibits are interactive and provide activities, “how it’s made” videos, webcasts, “meet the artist” interviews, and lesson plans. The technology is cutting edge and practical in every sense. But the site isn’t just centered around one institution—it’s a collaborative effort, uniting content from museums all over the country.
While this exact endeavor is more realistic in a country like Canada where there are fewer cultural institutions over a much larger area; this collaborative, interactive model should be indicative of the direction that entire arts and culture industry needs to be heading.
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