From Square Feet to Megabytes: Gallery Exhibit to Online Exhibit

As some of you may know, last September I finished curating a gallery exhibit at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine, entitled History in Motion: Public Transportation Connecting Maine's Communities. Collaboration with several other museums, such as the Brick Store Museum, Sanford Historical Committee, and Kennebunkport Historical Society was built into the project.

One of the many exciting outcomes was that the Kennebunkport Historical Society digitized some of its historic images and joined Maine Memory Network for the first time.

That inspired the exhibit team to create an online version of the gallery exhibit. Sounds easy, right? There's no exhibit furniture to worry about. No paint. No strategizing how to secure a conductor's hat so that visitors won't try it on.

As I quickly learned, moving a three-dimensional exhibit online has its own challenges. One becomes fluent with dpi, MB, url, and jpg acronyms, if you weren't already.

Then there's an appreciation for how people read on the computer and how that differs from reading a book or reading an exhibit. The "real estate" for the eye is even smaller than other formats. Then there's the non-linearity of the reading process. Readers can click here, click there, and move through the content with an unpredictable pattern.

I'm reminded of a lesson that I learned when directing the Educational Digitization Initiative at the Washington State History Museum - presenting online content is not only like working in three dimensions, it's like working in four dimensions. The internet provides us with a curious ability to move through content as though we were a time traveler, casting aside the conventions that normally constrain our movement.

For me, that makes working online all the more exciting, unpredictable, and ultimately, rewarding. Check out how History in Motion has become an online exhibit and let me know what you think.