London Transport Museum

The goal of the London Transport Museum online is to increase access to the permanent collections, allowing visitors to follow the physical museum narrative, exploring by themed gallery ("Digging Deeper") or floor plan, or browse by collection (vehicles, posters, equipment, etc). I hadn't seen the floor plan concept before, and enjoyed the reference to the physical museum location and layout. Site visitors are encouraged to engage in dialogue with the museum - sharing stores and memories. There is a "share a story link" on every page, as well as an area compiling the comments. The online museum is pretty new - the only stories or comments I found were from the focus group.

The online collection presents those objects on permanent display. At the head of every section or theme, there is a brief introduction describing the theme, number and date range of objects. At the object level, there is also a brief description, dimensions, date, ID number, and related objects. Additional resources, such as links to essays and other online exhibits (for example, Exploring 20th Century London, which I will definitely explore later).

The Online Museum project was supported by funding from Renaissance London ("museums for changing lives") and developed by the Digital resources project team (the individuals are listed). No collection policy or digital practices were discussed.

The museum definitely has a tourist feel, but I believe there is research value in the information they are providing. It could certainly provide an interesting starting point for research in transportation, graphic design, public transportation trends, etc.

Estonia's Digital Art Museum

The Digital Art Museum is a work in progress, just as the physical Art Museum of Estonia was in flux for many years.


Collection Principles

They do not have any guidelines available. The museum has begun with modern works, and is adding to the online collection going backward in time. The works are under copyright and you must register to buy prints or access other features. Browsing is free however. Funding has been provided by The European Commission for the present, no other information has been provided.
While there was a link to Web statistics, it required a password, but it seems they are keeping track of use.
According to the About Page, the curators of the museum are using a Translate framework, which means as far as I can tell that they are involved in culture dissemination, in this case Estonian Art.

Object Characteristics

The museum has included digital photographs of Sculpture, paintings, drawings, graphic art, and photo/video art. They use both JPG and TIF files, usually JPG I believe, I see no order to it. It is possible to enlarge most images one time.


Metadata

Information on the original object such as artist, medium, and date created are included as well as dimensions. Data about the file is in the form of file type, compression, file size, and resolution are all provided.

Intended Audience

According to the home page, "Digital Art Museum provides access to the works in the collection of Art Museum of Estonia to both Estonian and international contemporary art public and researchers."