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DC’s Newseum under construction in Second Life

October 6th, 2007 by tim finin

Newseum in Second Life Today’s Washington Post has a feature article, Is There a Future for Old-Fashioned Museums?, that has an interesting example of one new approach. The Newseum, whose new home is under construction in Washington DC today, “blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits.”. While the bricks and mortar is being laid in DC, a second copy is being raised in Second Life.

“For nearly 10 months, Newseum staff has been developing this virtual version of their museum. The Newseum has not yet decided whether it will bring this online version of the museum live. Organizers want to ensure that the Second Life version meshes with the brick-and-mortar museum. This digital snapshot shows the online museum’s exterior.” (link)

Museums are among our oldest types of institutions and many aspects remain unchanged since the first one, the Library of Alexandria. But the Newseum is a museum whose area is mostly about ideas and information, so it definitely opens up new possibilities.

The Newseum is not the only example of a virtual museum or even one in Second Life. See

Urban, R. et al., A Second Life for Your Museum: 3D Multi-User Virtual Environments and Museums. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 31, 2007.

and the associated presentation, A second Life for your Museum, by their SL colleagues Aethalides Kukulcan, Port Mirabeeau and Dingdong Bellman.

Of course, if you are a middle school student, getting a class trip to the computer lab to visit a virtual museum will not count for very much.

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