Despite the fact that I am notorious for moaning that “I’m tired,” not even I am torpid enough to really support the trend of museum putting their collections on-line. For District residents, if we care about what the museum holds, there’s no excuse not to see the real thing. For people outside the D.C. metropolitan area, the highlighting of pieces might be of slight interest, but the websites tend to be either so basic or so complicated that they’re often not helpful in the end.
At the simple end of the spectrum of Smithsonian websites is the Hirshhorn Museum and its modern art. One straightforward page shows four pieces, listing artist, title and time of creation, and new pieces appear when you refresh the page. If you keep refreshing the page, you see that it only recombines 13 pieces. On the positive side, clicking an image brings up a two-paragraph analysis. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer that information for more than that handful of pieces.
Never ones for subtlety, the Museum of American History project “HistoryWired: A Few of Our Favorite Things” bombards virtual visitors with items to click. The website is just confusing-it features a grid of 11 differently-sized general categories, with smaller boxes representing each piece. As you move your mouse over each unequally-sized squares a thumbnail image pops up and a yellow box offers explanatory text-for example “Celery Vase; Serving a Status Food.”
Now, I am positive you wanted to know all about this celery vase. When you click on the box for the grand artifact (which, sadly, is not on display in the museum), you will learn about it’s great past and will be asked if you “would like to see more objects like this on the site.” Clearly yes, yes you would, but you get to pick from a range of one (fewer) and 10 (more).
The average vote for the celery vase was an 8.4. It received stiff competition from “Cher Ami,” a taxidermied WWI carrier pigeon. He was inducted into the Racing Pigeon Hall of Fame and received a gold medal from the Organized Bodies of American Pigeon Fanciers, only to die in New Jersey.
Nestled among the celery relics and knickknacks and categorized under “Military,” this “hero of the skies” earned a 9.0. And, unlike the celery vase, it’s on display. So, since this electronic showcase has you so excited about the museum’s holdings, go out and see the real thing. Or don’t see the taxidermied pigeon. The point is just to get out.
The website for HistoryWired is http://historywired.si.edu. The actual Museum of American History is located at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W.
