culture track

Why attend the Cultural Track? Who will benefit?

There are many topics of concern to those working in cultural institutions, trying to make the most of the presence of the Web. This track is designed to create a context for dialogue between those who want to use the web and those who design and develop it. Many questions are not easily answered, but it is clear that until there is a good understanding between these two groups, there cannot be much progress.

Providing an opportunity for the world's leading Web developers and technicians to get together is a special feature of the 1998 WWW7 Conference. We urge you to take advantage of this unique opportunity.

NOTE: the Cultural Track is part of the main WWW7 Conference and participants can attend sessions within the track and/or in other tracks. (For details see draft program.)

Some of the questions around which we are planning our sessions include:

How can Web technologies enhance gallery/library/museum education?
How can curatorial and exhibition skills and values enhance offerings on the Web?
The virtual vs. the real: how do people relate to objects in cultural institutions and online?
Online museum/gallery/library audiences--what do we know about them?
Interesting approaches to cultural education online
Presenting material culture online: how can we create informative and respectful presentations of culture?
Culture clash: how can we bridge the differences between the more formal culture of institutions and the informal culture of the Web?
Dreaming: where should cultural institutions be heading on the Web and what are the upcoming technologies that will be relevant?
Everyman his own curator
One exhibit, many points of view
Sharing collections, sharing data, sharing interpretation, sharing experience

and with respect to metadata:

where are we at with metadata?
from data to metadata to interpretation ...
what can we expect soon?
how does a cultural institution convert its systems to give access to the Web?
What is Dublin Core? What are alternatives and what else is there?
what else can we do with metadata?

The aim is to provide a context in which participants can collaboratively tackle those hard issues which are often missed in conference sessions where paper presenters talk 'past' each other, politely listening and moving on. We hope the WWW7 session wrestles with issues of how Web technology can further the goals of cultural institutional research and education and what physical and digital collections and communication systems can accomplish. This, we believe, will make the WWW7 Cultural track distinctive.

So what is on the draft program so far? What is happening in the shoe collection process? Who is coming and who is sponsoring the event?

Last updated on 16 April 1998. Contact: Webmaster. This URL: /programme/culturetrack.html