Introduction
Museums started with the Museion in Alexandria which was built more than 2000
years ago. The aim of storing mankind's intellectual property and utilizing it in
future generations remains unchanged from that time to today, at the start of the
21st century. As a matter of fact, the digital technology of today is bringing about
the achievement of things that could not be achieved that long ago, even if the original
concepts existed.
For example, the dream of museum curators and staffs to permanently preserve exhibits
without deterioration is being partially achieved by digital archiving technology
which digitalizes the diverse information possessed by exhibits. Digitalized data
can be copied an infinite number of times without loss of information, which makes
it possible to maintain data in excess of the physical life of single storage media.
The power of digital technology, the most significant invention of the 20th century
- databases, networks and multimedia technology - have enabled the creation of so-called
virtual museums which have not existed in the past, which involve creating multimedia
information of exhibits, storing this information on databases, and exhibiting it
via networks.
Digital technology will also bring about great changes to so-called real museums
in the conventional sense of the term which store and exhibit actual items.
Virtual museums and real museums - these should be thought of not as opposing one
another, but as a real/virtual system that complements and strengthens one another
through digital technology. This is the concept of a digital museum.
The University Museum, The University oh Tokyo was quick to notice this, and since
three years ago has been making full-scale efforts to study how digital technology
can be utilized in the museum. The Digital Museum Exhibition held in 1996 can be
positioned as a presentation of elemental technologies and a presentation of the
concept of what type of museum can be striven towards by combining those technologies.
Then, on this occasion, to ask the world about the results of the initiatives over
the past three years, it has come to stage an exhibition named Digital Museum 2000.
On of the results of this exhibition is the digital archive - the Tokyo University
Digital Museum database. It will present a database featuring digitalized versions
of the valuable academic materials possessed by the museum in the following seven
fields: clay figures and earthenware from the Jomon period, old photographs of East
Asia and Micronesia, botanical specimens, forest plants, art magazines, ancient art
from West Asia, and old maps.
One more result is a cutting edge virtual museum constructed using the MUD (Multi
User Dungeon) technology which has been researched since the start.
Then, an example of research results on the real museum side is the strengthening
environment technology which supports the exhibition of actual objects with a computer.
For this purpose, this exhibition focuses especially on the Jomon period, and is
presented centering on the Yamanouchi Collection and the Collections of Morse from
the shell mounds of Omori which are Jomon collections that is the pride of our University.
We will then apply the different types of strengthening environment technology that
we have developed to the display of actual objects, and present new methods of presentation.
Finally, we will carry put forth our distributed museum as a museum for the 21st
century, and perform efforts to present that concept. The decision has been made
to carry out a cooperative experiment in which multiple museums are linked with an
ultra high-speed communications line, fusing them together as though they were one
virtual museum, and to utilize that connection in the exhibits at the respective
venues in terms of a real museum.
The largest aim of this exhibition is not only for digital technology to have a major
impact on museums, but to confirm the philosophy of the way that it will be used
in museums.
The integration of the proposition of eternal storage of materials and the "anytime,
anywhere, to anyone" open museum concept. This exhibition will allow people
to see how far the concept of a museum for the 21st century has deepened over the
past three years, and how close it is to realization as this goal, set forth at the
Digital Museum Exhibition of 1996.
Ken Sakamura
General Producer, Executive Committee of DIGITAL MUSEUM 2000
Professor, The University Museum, The University of Tokyo
