This week I asked the students to write reviews of two history museums’ web offerings. For my own contribution to the discussion, I thought I would focus on two German museums and their respective websites.
Haus der Geschichte (House of History) – Bonn, Leipzig, Berlin
The Haus der Geschichte (HdG) is one of Germany’s few federally funded history museums. Although headquartered in Bonn, it has branch museums in other cities as well (one in Leipzig and two Berlin). The main website offers information about the foundation, which oversees all of the museums, and then offers sub-domains for the offerings in each of the three cities. It is clear from the start that the Bonn museum takes center stage, but the other sites are also well represented.
The design of the site (recently updated) is quite aesthetically pleasing. The site is best characterized as a companion site or visitor information portal, rather than an attempt to digitize and extend the offerings of the museum. For each of the four museums, the visitor finds all of the necessary information for panning their visit, complete with maps and directions on how to find the museum. If you want to see some of the objects that are on display, you will be rather disappointed – there are but ten selected objects or themes that the museum has put on digital display. Those that the museum curators chose are wonderful selections and the information about each is presented very informatively. The objects given the special treatment all hail from the Bonn collection, leaving the Leipzig and Berlin collections without such in-depth treatment.
The digital visitor, however, can find a few items here that cannot be found by visiting the brick-and-mortar museums. About a decade ago, the HdG partnered with the Museum of German History in Berlin (the other federally-funded history museum) to create LeMO (the Living Museum Online). LeMO is an extensive collection of primary documents (mainly visual, but also includes text, sound, and video clips as well). LeMO draws from the extensive collections of both museums to present a very in-depth history of Germany from 1871 to the present. The HdG, however, also has a few digital exhibits of its own, which by comparison are much better than the sprawling LeMO site. The HdG offers six virtual exhibits, which range from a snazzy site dedicated to the Parliamentary Council (West Germany’s constitutional convention, which met from 1948 to 1949) to a not-so-snazzy online project that looks at how the Europe is connected through architecture, culture, religion and its ties to the rest of the world.
On the whole, the offerings here a good, but they could be presented in a much more dynamic, fun manner which seems to be the direction that the museum is heading. I do hope that the museum continues to build more digital exhibits that can extend the experience of visiting the museum and I also hope that the other museums outside of Bonn receive more attention.
The German Emigration Center (Deutsches Auswanderer Haus, Bremerhaven)
One of the best virtual museums in Germany is the online presence of the German Emigration Museum – a corollary to the Tenement Museum in New York City. The port city of Bremerhaven was the departure point for millions of Germans and other Europeans seeking a new life in the New World.
The splash page for the museum is a rather long cinematic look at the exterior and interior of the museum. I have to admit, I have never seen something like this on another site. One might think that this is overkill, but it is very effective and inviting for potential visitors. Many visitors who come to such a website are looking for glimpse of what to expect when they make their actual visit and this is exactly what the introductory film offers.
Diving deeper into the website, the content is a bit more sparse, but still offers some interesting insights into the museum and the history of German emigration (I can’t post any links here, since the whole site is written in flash and does not allow for linking to specific content). The visitor can take a virtual tour, look at information prepared for school groups, read a brief overview about the history of emigration (a very brief overview), and also learn about other practical aspects of visiting the museum.
The German Emigration Center is relatively new – it opened it’s doors in 2005. The museum has a great start here with their general website, but I remain hopeful that they will continue this tradition and begin to construct some virtual exhibits for those who cannot venture to Bremerhaven to see it for themselves.
I concur that the Haus der Geschichte possesses an appealing design in regards to its alignment and use of color and images. I don’t necessarily think that the lack of digitized artifacts or multimedia detracts significantly from the quality of the website and, to be frank, I find it somewhat refreshing. One would hope that visitors to the website would be intrigued enough by the information to visit the physical site. After all, if a website could provide a similar experience to the museum, why would any individual want to visit that place? Furthermore, what implications would that have for funding and further digitization of that museum’s contents?
The German Emigration is truly an interesting site, although I found it somewhat annoying that certain could not be read by my browser and that I needed to maximize the window to interact with the website. Certain color issues also made browsing somewhat more complicated, as light grey on white does not present itself well to me. Nevertheless, the content and presentation was a treat to see.