** tomorrow ** Ralph E. Chapman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TITLE: Virtualization as a Critical Technology for Natural History Museums TIME: Wed, February 27, @ 12:30p LOCATION: 624 Agua Fria Conference Room Lunch will be available for purchase for $5 ABSTRACT: These are critical times for natural history museums and their collections. As real funding drops significantly, as it has in the great majority of museums over the past twenty-five years, funding for essential work has dropped below acceptable levels. Among the three major components of most museums - research, public programs (education, outreach, and exhibitions), and collections - all too often collections programs get cut the deepest as funds disappear. Ironically, this comes at a time when we've finally realized just how fragile most of these collections are and how badly many collections have been cared for, some for well over a century. Consequently, funds are dropping just as a large infusion of money is needed to reverse this long-term neglect. Complicating this is the fact that the number of scientists interested in using collections has greatly increased. Therefore, the need for access to the information contained by the specimens in these collections has also greatly increased - putting additional financial burdens on collections programs. Virtualization technologies are a means for simultaneously increasing the protection of natural history specimens, while allowing more economic storage and access policies. At a time when museum components are expected to generate significant outside funding, virtualization provides a new and potentially great source of funds for collections programs. A great bonus of this process is that the products of virtualization - two-dimensional and three-dimensional models and animations - also greatly increase the value of these collections to researchers, educators, and exhibit specialists. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
