The Web Library:
Building a World Class Personal Library with Free Web Resources
Online companion to the
book.
Frequently updated: last update = 5-10-06
copyright
Nick
Tomaiuolo 2005
Chapter Seven: Pixels at an Exhibition
Archival Exhibitions on the
Web
The creation of the information specialists at the Smithsonian
Institution Library, end users can search the web for online exhibitions
that are primarily relevant to libraries, archives and historical
societies.
Art Images for College Teaching (AICT)
The express purpose of this
database, which offers 1,100 images personally photographed by the site’s
creator, art historian and visual resources librarian Allan Kohl, is to freely disseminate images of important art and
architecture. The collection is organized into five categories: Ancient,
Medieval, Renaissance & Baroque, 18th – 20th
Century, and Non-Western, but one cannot search for specific images. Each
photograph is concisely described and accompanied by cross references to
where the subject is discussed in one or more of 20 widely used art
history survey textbooks. Emphasizing that the site is a “Free Use
Educational Resource,” Kohl encourages any use that is both educational
and non-commercial, which will help faculty without the resources to buy
access to expensive collections.
Cuneiform Digital
Library Initiative
CDLI Represents the efforts of an international group
of Assyriologists, museum curators and historians of science to make available
through the internet the form and content of cuneiform tablets dating from the
beginning of writing, ca. 3200 B.C., until the end of the third millennium. View
the tablets
here!
Google Museum Directory
Let Google guide you to art, science, natural history, children's
museums and others or browse by region.
MoCCA: the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
Online exhibitions from the world's first cartoon
museum located in New York City.
MuseumStuff.com
This tool maintains a catalog of over 20,000 museum resources;
predominantly concerned with topics that have an online gallery or virtual
exhibit associated with them.
WebExhibits.org
WebExhibits is a pubic service seeking to make people more informed about
science and culture (e.g., studying connections between art and science).
You can copy, distribute, or display many of the exhibits, unless
otherwise mentioned.
World Wide
Web Virtual Library Museum Pages
A
comprehensive directory of
Exemplary Exhibitions
Art
of the Motorcycle
The online counterpart of an exhibition mounted in
1998.
Clockworks from the Sundial
to the Atomic Second
A creative web only exhibit from Encyclopedia
Britannica.
Dangerous Curves: the Art of the Guitar
A preview of 28 guitars from this exhibition that ran from 2000-2001
at the MFA in Boston. Hosted by the Museum of Musical Instruments --
check out its other
exhibitions and
collections.
Frick Collection Comprehensive List of Paintings
The entire catalog of paintings from the Frick Museum (New York) with
links to many digital reproductions.
Internet Public Library Exhibits
A smattering of unique, multimedia Web exhibits. From lighthouse
photographs to the classics of Western music.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The
MFA online tours introduces you to the 316,000 objects in the museum's
collection.
Museum of Modern Art Online
Projects
An ambitious site employing the newest digital technology.
National Gallery of Art:
"In-Depth Study Tours"
Hundreds of guided virtual
tours from Washington, D.C.
Russian
Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934 (MoMA)
A remarkable web only
exhibition.
Virtual Instrument Museum
Hosted by Wesleyan University
(Connecticut) the "VIM" presents approximately 100 instruments. Some of
the displays are accompanied by audio and video.
Education
(Examples)
Art Renewal Center
Very
useful though very commerical, ARC is steadily expanding with thousands of
high quality images of the greatest paintings and sculpture in history.
The site is also building an encyclopedic collection of essays,
biographies and articles by top scholars in the field.
Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets
of Nature
The expansive physical counterpart of this exhibition ran at
the National Library of Medicine from 1997-1998. Many of its appendages
live on at this site.
Intel Museum
Can't find any information on the 8086 microprocessor? It's all here.
Ocean Planet
Ocean Planet
premiered at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural
History from April 1995 to April 1996, where it attracted nearly two
million visitors. This electronic online companion exhibition contains all
of the text and most of the panel designs and images found in the
traveling exhibition.
Entertainment (Examples)
Life Magazine Cover
Collection
120 Life Magazine covers for research, education and
fun.
National Baseball Hall of
Fame Online Exhibits Cooperstown, New York
A good example, for website
managers as well as end users, of a website that keeps the public
connected with an organization, its mission and its offerings.
Speak
Softly and Carry a Beagle the Art of Charles Shultz
The online
complement to a 2002 exhibition from the Norman Rockwell Museum in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Special Research
Collections (Examples)
Vincent
van Gogh Gallery
Endorsed by the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, this
site's 4,241 pages is a comprehensive research tool for van Gogh scholars.
Created by David Brooks, it's available in 17 languages.
Chicago Historical Society: the Haymarket Affair Digital Collection
An outstanding
digital collection providing online access to primary source materials
relating to the Haymarket Affair, a controversial moment in Chicago's past
and a pivotal event in the early history of the American labor movement.
Gottingen Gutenberg Bible
Due to the high
quality images - especially the enlargements - it is possible that the
download may take some time. It's worth waiting.
Gutenberg Bible: Digitized Images (The British Library)
Not one but TWO digitized specimens for viewing and comparison.
Library of Congress American Memory Exhibits
American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to
the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7
million digital items from more than 100 historical collections.
Octavo
Editions
The web location of the company that digitized the
Library of Congress's Gutenberg Bible.
Library of Congress Rare Books and Special Collections Division
Digitized rare books including including Mercator's atlas (1595), dime
novels, William Blake and others.
Become a Curator at the Fine Arts
Museums (San Francisco)
Have
some fun and prepare your own web-based exhibition hosted at the Fine Arts
Museums. Click "Create Your Own Gallery Online!" Or
become a curator at the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts!
"Turning the Pages" at the
British Library and the
National Library of Medicine
Using animation software, the
digitized images of rare and beautiful historic books are available for
site visitors to virtually "leaf through." You can also zoom in on the
pages for more detail while reading or listening to explanations of the
text. Three books are currently available at the NLM; 12 titles, including
da Vinci's "Sketchbook" are available at the British Library.
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Library