By Margaret Kadoyama

At a small culturally specific museum in the San Francisco Bay Area, a recently-hired program planner contacted a well-known American Indian basket weaver to explore the possibility of presenting a program for the museum. During the conversation, the artist said, "My experience with that museum has not been good." When the program planner probed a bit, the artist shared her story. Earlier that year, someone from the museum asked her to be a presenter at a symposium, and she agreed to do it. That was the last the artist heard about the program for quite some time. There was no follow-up; the museum did not even provide the location of the hotel where the symposium was being held. The weaver was also commissioned, by the same museum, to create a piece for a large traveling exhibition, and again, no follow-up was done. The museum lost important opportunities to build a respectful relationship with this artist, resulting in far-reaching consequences for the museum and its communities.

This could be simply a story of poor program planning, but it's more than that.

By Robert A. Varisco

More and more, art museums in the United States are reaching out through the Web to offer rich learning experiences. Here at Lehigh University's Department of Educational Technology, we have been closely studying art museum Web sites across the U.S. and how they are currently using the Web to extend their educational mission. Our studies have identified eleven educational resources that are available: Online Exhibits, Collections, Learning Links, Lectures and Demonstrations, Lesson Plans, Learning Activities, Research Databases, Conversation Tools, Guided Tours, Miscellaneous Other Resources and Online Instruction.

By Justin McInteer & Keisha Bolling

For over twenty-five years museum education departments have been pushing the confines of the traditional museum space and heading onto the streets through community outreach programs. One of the more visible forms of these programs is the mobile museum, or museum on wheels, that have been developed by numerous museums across the country. By exploring the demographics of those who attend museums, it immediately becomes evident that most museums are serving only a small portion of the community as a whole. The development of a museum on wheels not only pushes the borders of the museum itself, but it has the potential to interact with an entirely new audience. And in the case of working with children, it has the ability to nurture curiosity and create a lifetime love of museums.