For a children's museum, where the collection may consist entirely of constructed exhibits or things not widely regarded as collectable, putting information on the Web is low risk. For an art museum, this may be an entirely different matter. Most museums depend upon revenue streams that relate to attendance, and whatever is made public puts attendance at potential risk. For the present, at least, museums appear to favor making their collections available for some use on the Web. The experiences of visiting a museum on the Web is very different from visiting it live are very different.
Museums certainly are interested in using the Web.
Early graduates of the UNL Museum Studies program have been rewarded by employers for any training they received in Web use. There's a big difference between a Web site for a teacher in a course, and a museum. For a teacher, the students may have to come to the site for information. So, the site need not be especially efficient or attractive. A vital statistic for any museum is the amount of time visitors spend at an exhibit.