They will be creating spaces in which members of that society can give back experiences, information and the pleasure of discovery, and in which the museum can form on-going relationships with remote visitors. Museum managers are beginning to realize that offering this parallel programming in virtual space will not be easy or free, but they are greatly attracted by the opportunity to engage millions of people from distant cultures. For the experiences we create to be as compelling as the opportunity they offer, we will need to socialize virtual space and give intelligence to virtual objects, so that our virtual visitors can engage with us, each other and the alien materials that make up our rich collections. Otherwise we risk making visiting another culture on the Web replicate the worst aspects of the insulated tourist experience - many cities in a few days and no interaction with the local society. Each year's program of events, abstracts, speaker and demonstrator biographies and full papers are available.
All Proceedings are also available for order from the site.
All the papers cited throughout this report are also available online . David Bearman and Jennifer Trant are co-chairs of the Museums and the Web '99 conference.