Virtual Library

Humanities

World museums

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You may relocate to a more local VLmp site if response is slow.

Please contact Jonathan Bowen if you would like to maintain information on a particular topic, or support / sponsor the pages in some way. For additions to a particular page, please contact the maintainer concerned. Currently the main page receives thousands of "visitors" each week.

Mirror sites

• Australia - hosted by the National Museum of Australia (see also ICOM mirror site)
• Canada - hosted by the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN - see also ICOM mirror site)
• Japan including in Japanese - hosted by Internet Museum (see also ICOM mirror site)
• Sweden - hosted by ICOM (The International Council of Museums)
• UK - hosted by Museophile at South Bank University, London (see also ICOM mirror site)
• USA - hosted by CoOL (Conservation On-Line), Stanford University (see also ICOM mirror site)

• Germany - hosted by Historisches Centrum Hagen and Hagen Center of Technology (updated daily)
• Russia - hosted by Museums of Russia
• Spain including searching - hosted by Grupo de Tratamiento de Imágenes (UPM), Madrid (updated daily)
• USA, IL - hosted by the Illinois State Museum

Contents

• Museums by country/continent:
  • Africa
  • Austria (also in German)
  • Canada (also in French)
  • Germany (also in German, French and Italian)
  • Italy
  • Japan (also in Japanese)
  • Korea
  • Hungary (also in Hungarian)
  • Latin America (parallel in English and Spanish)
  • Luxembourg
  • Poland (also in Polish)
  • Portugal (also in Portuguese)
  • Romania (also in Romanian)
  • Russia (also in Russian)
  • Spain (parallel in English and Spanish)
  • Sweden (parallel in English and Swedish)
  • Switzerland (also in French)
  • UK
  • USA
  • Rest of the world

• Museums and exhibitions: (see reorganization)
  • Recommended additions
  • Selected virtual exhibitions
  • Find museums (by keyword - e.g., by speciality)
  • Art galleries (includes selected major art museums/galleries)
  • Selected museums of international significance
  • Library exhibits
  • Museums for children
  • Computer-related museums

• Further lists (museum-related lists of hyperlinks held elsewhere)
• Contacts (professional information)
• Announcement about the museums pages, including visitor statistics (formatted for netscape)
• Books (also in the UK)
• Talks on the Virtual Library museums pages (on-line slides, etc.)
• Reorganization of the museums pages
• Submission form
• Aviation museums (Virtual Library)
• University museums
• Related Virtual Library entries:
  • Archaeology museums
  • Culture
  • Humanities
  • Zoos
• Newsgroup article search for museum and museums from Deja News.
• Old museums page (as of April 1995 - of historical interest only)
• Old information page (lists of real museums by country/area - this information is now included at the end of lists for individual countries)

The related separate WWW Virtual Library information on libraries and history of art may be of interest.

Selected virtual exhibitions

EXPO Ticket Office (funded by the Library of Congress).

This gives an early and recommended tour around some WWW exhibits if you are not sure what to want to see. Like all good museums, it has a restaurant!

WebMuseum (formerly the WebLouvre), also in the UK and elsewhere.

Visit here if you like art. The site won a 1994 Best of the Web award.

Virtual Museum of Computing.

Includes an eclectic collection of hyperlinks connected with the history of computing and on-line computer-based exhibits available both locally and around the world.

Recommended additions

17 April 2003: Museophile discussion forums.

Museum-related announcements, discussion and mailing lists. Honorable mention in the 2003 Best of the Web awards at the MW2003 conference.

24 February 2002: Musee.com.

A directory of museum stores and shops.

8 March 2000: National Museum of Colombia.

Foremost Colombian museum, in Spanish.

11 November 1999: Instituto Latinoamericano de Museologia (ILAM), South America.

Includes a directory of Latin American museums by country.

13 July 1999: The State Hermitage Museum, St. Peterburg, Russia.

In English and Russian. See a virtual tour.

14 May 1999: 24 Hour Museum, UK.

A new UK museum portal launched during Museums Week, including the Young 24 Hour Museum for children.

14 March 1999: Walker Art Center, USA.

Overall winner of the MW99 Best of the Web awards.

14 November 1998: Fiji Museum.

First major Pacific island country museum Web site.

21 October 1998: National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic.

Information available in Czech and English.

25 September 1998: Azerbaijan museums.

Listed by Culture and Arts of the Azerbaijan Republic Web site.

23 April 1998: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA.

Best overall site winner in the Best of the Web competition at the Museums and the Web conference, Toronto, Canada, 22-25 April 1998.

8 March 1998: National Museums of Kenya and National Museum of Namibia.

Two of the first major museum Web sites from central Africa. See also regional Kenyan museums.

5 February 1998: Château de Versailles, near Paris, France.

In French and English.

16 November 1997: The Getty, California, USA.

The Getty Center is now open.

14 November 1997: Muséofile, France.

National database of French museums

25 July 1997: SCRAN, Scotland.

Scottish Cultural Resource Access Network, a UK Millennium Project, officially launched today, including search facilities.

19 March 1997: Exploratorium, San Francisco, USA.

Winner of the Best Museum Site of 1997 at the Museums and the Web conference, Los Angeles, USA, 16-19 March 1997.

7 March 1997: National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA.

Tour the collection.

6 February 1997: Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

Includes QuickTimeVR Virtual Reality of some of the galleries and an index of artists with some images such as Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.

15 January 1997: Finnish Museums Association. (Also in Finnish and Swedish.)

Includes an alphabetical list of museums (also ordered by location and by type) and other museum information.

4 January 1997: Art Museum Network

Official Web site for the largest art museums in North America. Choose a museum by region.

5 December 1996: Florida Association of Museums

Includes listings of all Florida's museums selectable by a location map, with links to museum Web sites where available.

7 November 1996: Boston and New England museums

Excellent local guide to museums by type and location. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont are covered.

18 October 1996: Egyptian museums

List of museums in Egypt and international museums with Egyptian collections from Egypt's CultureNet.

7 October 1996: British Museum, London, UK.

See collection highlights.

13 September 1996: Russian museums.

See searchable Museums of Russia and (In English and other languages.)

31 July 1996: Museums and exhibitions in Switzerland.

Index by name, place and subject. (Also in French, German and Italian.)

5 July 1996: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, USA.

See menu including the collection and current exhibitions.

27 June 1996: National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

Includes the Australian Museums On Line (AMOL), providing a national museum directory and on-line searching of museum collections.

21 June 1996: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada.

In French and English, making good use of moving graphical images.

20 June 1996: Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London, UK.

The largest decorative arts museum in the world.

12 February 1996: Cultural map of Greece, Hellenic Ministry Of Culture.

Part of the Hellenic Culture information server. In English and Greek.

15 January 1996: Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Toronto, Canada.

Just about everything, including children's activities and on-line artifact identification.

1 January 1996: De Museumserver, the Netherlands.

Dutch and international museums on the Internet.

12 December 1995: Natural History Museum, London.

The UK's first museum Web server's have been completely redesigned, including Virtual Reality fossils using VRML.

24 November 1995: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

One of the largest art collections in the world. See the museum shop.

16 August 1995: Deutsches Museum, Munich.

Science and technology. See also German Historical Museum, Berlin, with links to other German museums. (In German and English.)

14 July 1995: Le Louvre, Paris.

Information from the (real!) Louvre. (In French, English and other languages.)

30 May 1995: French Minstry of Culture.

Important archaeological discovery of a Palaeolithic painted cave near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on 25 December 1994. (Information in English and French.)

8 May 1995: Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.

Major reorganization of the WWW pages, now second sourced by SGI.

25 April 1995: Science Museum, London.

A new Information Superhighway exhibition opened today.

11 April 1995: WebAcropol, Athens.

A virtual tour of the Acropolis. Worth waiting for the wonderful views.

11 April 1995: British Library Exhibitions.

See the Treasures Digitisation Project, including the Magna Carta, which can be viewed at > various magnifications.

20 March 1995: Exhibitions in the ether.

Article in The Times Higher Education Supplement, Multimedia features section, page xii, 10 March 1995.

13 March 1995: Vatican City museums and virtual exhibits.

Includes many virtual tours such as the Sistine Chapel.

8 March 1995: The Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria.

On-line exhibits, including Empires Beyond the Great Wall: the Heritage of Genghis Khan.

2 March 1995: The Computer Museum, Boston.

Includes The Computer Clubhouse on-line art gallery, an educational outreach program.

11 January 1995: French National Center for Art and Culture Georges Pompidou.

Also in French.

5 January 1995: Ontario Science Centre, Toronto & the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Quebec.

In English and French.

Reorganization of the museums pages

Due to the large number of museums being added to the museums pages (at least one per day), the list is gradually being split into sublists by country or region. It is also being distributed on the network to different maintainers in charge of individual pages. The first distributed page was for Sweden, maintained by Cary Karp. Further distribution is encouraged, as are more mirror sites to improve speed of access around the world. If you wish to maintain a VLmp list of museums for a country please use the example page as a starting point and contact me the URL when available for possible linking into the VLmp hierarchy. Make sure that links to other resources within your site (e.g., a local language version of the page) use absolute URLs to ensure that they still work at mirror sites.

VLmp files are accessible with specially modified hyperlinks via anonymous FTP from the VLmp FTP directory (also accessible using HTTP) at South Bank University, London, UK. These files are updated nightly around midnight GMT. Potential mirror sites are welcome to copy the files in this directory on a regular basis (at least weekly) to provide further VLmp sites. Please send me the URL for such sites once set up for possible linking from the main VL museums page. As an incentive, if linked your site will also receive a prominent hyperlink at the start of the main page to encourage visitors. Further technical information is available.

Offers of help, support, sponsorship, etc., are welcome, as are suggestions for further facilities. Please accept my apologies that I cannot guarantee to reply to all email. Not all museums can be added to the VLmp resource at the moment due to lack of manpower, but all messages are saved for future addition in due course. An information submission form is available.

The page has been reviewed by POINTreview in its museums category as being in the "top 5%" of WWW pages.

Recommended by the Google search engine.

See VLmp Persistent URL (PURL)

Note: Inclusion in the Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp) does not confer an automatic right to granting of a .museum domain name. See a list of second-level domain names approved by Musedoma.