CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: WITH A CLICK, SURFERS CAN TOUR MUSEUMS OF WORLD

Cybertip: Yahoo! lists more than 400 art galleries and museums across the world. You can jump directly to the search by typing: http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Museums_and_Galleries

When one talks of surfing the net, culture isn't usually the first thing that comes to mind. But we found a number of art galleries and museums on the web.

One of the best things is that you can visit museums around the world in a click.

First stop would be one of America's outstanding museums, the Smithsonian Institute, which can be found at

http://www.si.edu

Peggy: With the Internet, the Smithsonian has become a museum without walls. Since May of 1995, millions of Americans have wandered through the halls with no closing hours, no long lines or crowds, no worries about wheelchair ramps or special facilities. With a few mouse clicks, you can jump from modern art to ancient artifacts. And you don't have to be in the United States. You need just a computer and a link to the World Wide Web.

Joni: They claim to be the world's largest museum. Actually the Smithsonian is 16 museums and galleries and the National Zoo as well as 11 research centers, collectively housing over 140 million artifacts and specimens.

Peggy: Museums have always been restricted by space, but in Cyberspace entire collections can be shown. Time and space take on whole new meanings. This web address gets over 4 million hits per month. Among the most popular sites are American Art, American Indian Museum, National Zoo, and National Air and Space Museum, and plans are under way to expand in every area of Smithsonian operation.

Joni: Next stop: France. See how easy it is to travel? The world-renown Louvre was established in 1793 by the French Republic. The building was originally designed as a palace. If you want to visit, admission is free the first Sunday of each month. It's always free on the Internet.

http://www.louvre.fr

Peggy: The Louvre. Holy Cow! It's all in French. Well, I guess that makes sense. But you can see versions in French, English, Spanish or Portuguese. The collection is divided into eight categories, including paintings. Let's see the Mona Lisa.

Joni: All that's there is her eyes. When you click on the picture, the entire painting pops up. Leonard de Vinci painted her in 1503 to 1506, and the painting is 77 centimeters high.

Peggy: The page loads pretty fast, especially considering how many photos are included. And when you click on the small images, the whole image shows. The thumbnails show a small portion of the paintings, just enough to get you curious. You want to see the rest.

Joni: Here's an idea for teachers of French. Send your students to the Louvre page. In addition to navigating the site using French, the Louvre has audio visual productions in French, a French-only magazine and databases available for thousands and thousands of the museum's holdings.

Peggy: Just for fun, let's spin halfway around the world to the Museum of Contemporary Art at Sydney Australia at

http://www.mca.com.au

Joni: It's home to 5,000 pieces of art acquired since the 1960s, with extensive Aboriginal works.

Peggy; Well, the best thing we can say is that the museum is located in Australia. But they do have lots of links to other art sites, including Pigvision. It's an unusual collaboration between the Tasmanian schools of art and agriculture.

Joni: Another of the largest museums in the world is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Forget the airfare, we're jumping right there.

http://www.metmuseum.org

Peggy: The collection has more than 2 million works of art spanning more than 5,000 years. The site includes a floor plan, a detailed listing of exhibitions and the gift and bookshop catalog with over 100 of their best-selling items available on line.

Joni: A new education section is full of stuff for teachers, students and visitors. The Thomas J. Watson Library gives full bibliographic information for about 70 percent of the library's holdings online. You must use Telenet to access the bibliography. I would say they're internationally based. Here's a button that says "If you have a Japanese browser click here."

Peggy: Let's look at some art on the museum's second floor. The layout is clean and easy to follow. We traveled to the musical instrument gallery.

Joni: The collection has nearly 4,000 objects from six continents including a fully equipped violin maker's workshop and the oldest extant piano dating back to 1720. Visitors may hear music played on the instruments. Online visitors, however, just get a view of a harpsichord.

Peggy: Although the museum's collection is extensive, the web offering is limited, usually to just one or two images from any category.

Joni: The museum's online gift store shows you pictures of items and you can order online through this secured site.

Peggy: If you need to know anything about museums in Britain, visit MuseumNet. It provides brief descriptions of all major museums in the United Kingdom, as well as regional museums.

http://www.museums.co.uk

Joni: The site also has in excess of 50 links to detailed museum websites. They also have a bulletin board to start a discussion or make a comment about the World of Museums. We zipped over to the British Museum, known worldwide for its vast collection of Egyptian antiquities. A small number of collection highlights can be found as well as directions to the London museum.

Peggy: Closer to home, the St. Louis Art Museum is online. The address is easy to remember: SLAM.

http://www.slam.org

Joni: The St. Louis museum has 30,000 works in its collection. Popular exhibits include a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy complete with an X-ray that allows you to peek inside the mummy case. The museum is located in one of two permanent structures built for the 1904 World's Fair. It ranks among the country's top 10 museums in attendance with an average of 500,000 visitors annually. Let's take a look at the online collection. Let's start with modern art.

Peggy: We have a choice of three pieces from the collection along with a text description of the whole collection. Click on an image, and you can learn more about the piece and the artist. The online museum had nine collection categories with three images in each category.

Joni: Not a bad trip in Cyberspace. E-mail us about your favorite museum site at movnldd.net.

See you in Cyberspace.

~Joni Adams is managing editor and Peggy Scott is graphics editor at the Southeast Missourian.