Okay, so last time I talked about stealing and now I will refer to inspiration. (Since this is where the real stealing is happening) I think the primary ‘inspiration’ my site design will come from the Object of History site. I will probably use a similar layout with the five categories arranged sequentially on the page. On this site there is a large link to teacher resources. I am not sure yet if I will need more than that to redirect researchers. What I particularly like about the site is the explore link, which leads the visitor to talking head interviews arranged by subjects. This way the viewer can watch the parts they are interested in.
I found another way of doing this on the Newseum site (which by the way, if you are interested in news at all is a pretty great site). This site presents an interactive fact or fiction game that gives you the option of watching a video about the issue. I’m not sure I want the site to be so, ‘fun’, but I feel like there are a number of options for me to vary the ways and depths in which viewers explore my site.
Professor Cohen suggested drawing viewers in with engaging questions. That reminded me of the Knowledge web project site. A lot of other museum sites do this, but since my goal is to become the next James Burke, I feel that it should be a technique that I use.
I wish I could go as far with the museum as the Lost Museum site, but for now I am going to stay away from a total virtual environment. I think I will have an opening page with a rotating featured exhibits graphic, that poses question to draw viewers into the exhibit. Also, I am really thinking about doing something with objects. For example, with the vision video I am going to rely heavily on the work of Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer, which discusses objects like the zootrope and the stereoscope. For my sound video, I intend to base my analysis on Rath’s How Early America Sounded, which deals a good deal with bells and church architecture. The videos could stop and offer to link to certain objects, that will then have a textual explanation of their significance, that the viewer could skim or read carefully and have the option of going back to the video at the end. I could also have an object museum. Pictures of the objects would describe the objects significance in history as it relates to the senses with links to the video at the end.
Well, that’s what I have been thinking about. Next post…library side.
Andrea Odiorne
