The Electronic Smithsonian

Smithsonian enters cyberspace with information-packed world-wide web home page

May 9, 1995
Mary Combs (202) 357-2627 ext. 121
Hamlet Paoletti (202) 357-2627 ext. 114
(202) 357-2700

http://www.si.edu

On Monday, May 8, on Capitol Hill, Smithsonian Secretary I. Michael Heyman and Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich officially launched the Smithsonian Institution onto the World Wide Web.

Earlier in the day, the Home Page had been previewed by the Smithsonian's Board of Regents.

The Smithsonian’s Home Page is the first in a series of initiatives to take the Institution across the United States and around the globe.

Staff members throughout the Smithsonian--the largest museum and research complex in the world, with 16 museums and galleries, the National Zoo and several research centers--have participated in the development of a fully integrated, cross-referenced presentation of the Institution’s sites, people and resources. The information is now available to everyone with a computer and a link to the World-Wide Web.

Also today, students and teachers at Lowell Elementary School in Bellingham, Wash.; the Santa Fe Indian School, in New Mexico; Ohio’s Stark County Schools; and Jefferson Junior High School in Washington, D.C., will be among the first to use the Smithsonian Home Page. Their comments, suggestions and insights, transmitted across the Internet as they explore the virtual exhibition "Ocean Planet," will be used by Smithsonian staff to prepare a teacher’s manual for elementary and secondary school classes.

As the Web site was launched, Secretary Heyman said, "The Smithsonian presence on the World Wide Web is the first step toward fulfilling the commitment I made at my installation, a promise that the Smithsonian would become more than the place to visit in Washington, that we would become present throughout the country in new ways, and that we would become deeply engaged in this new world of information transmission and sharing."

"At the heart of the information revolution is something far more than an advance in technology," he continued. "It is the fulfilling of one central promise of democracy: to make knowledge available to as many citizens as possible, and to allow that access to be shaped by their needs. This new 'Smithsonian Without Walls' brings our resources home to America's homes, schools, senior-citizen and youth centers, universities, museums, laboratories and research centers, and it gives us an opportunity to interact with them in ways undreamed of a few years ago. As we plan for the celebration of our 150th anniversary in 1996, we will continue to enlarge our technological capacity and know-how to extend the reach of our historic mission," Heyman said. "James Smithson's goal of ‘the increase and diffusion of knowledge' has been reborn for a new century."

The World-Wide Web shares text- and image-based documents over the Internet. Inside the Web, home pages are interconnected and cross-referenced--the user can jump from document to document and site to site at will. While a printed publication or a museum exhibition can present only a limited amount of material, the capacity of a Web home page to provide information, and access to related Web sites is virtually unlimited.

The Smithsonian Home Page gives users the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian in much the same way as visitors to the Mall do. Users can start by gathering general information at the "Castle," and then decide which Smithsonian facility to "visit." Or, they can proceed directly to their favorite museums, exhibitions or objects. They can do even more. Using the Smithsonian Home Page feature called "Perspectives," they can bring together all the Smithsonian’s knowledge about a single subject and create their own collections and exhibitions.

The Smithsonian Web site offers more than 1,500 electronic pages and contains overviews in Spanish, German and French. "It would be hard to find in the Web today another home page as rich with information and as diverse as the Smithsonian's," said Peter House, a National Science Foundation staff member detailed to the Smithsonian's Office of Information Technology. House was responsible for the technical development of the Institution’s Web site.

Among the information available beginning May 8:

• Help in planning a Smithsonian visit, including schedules of exhibitions, tours, lectures and film screenings in Washington

• Schedules of exhibitions traveling around the country

• A virtual tour of the National Museum of American Art

• "Ocean Planet," a cyberspace exhibition developed in conjunction with NASA and based on the "Ocean Planet" exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History

• Information about scientific research, including photo tours of undersea research areas

• More than 3,000 photographs, including images of some of the Smithsonian's most popular objects, including the Hope Diamond and the Wright Brothers' Flyer

• Video and audio samples of Smithsonian educational material and Smithsonian-produced recordings

• "Shopping" areas featuring items sold in the museum shops and through the Smithsonian Catalogue

In developing its home page, the Smithsonian benefited from expertise and equipment donated by several government agencies and private organizations. The National Science Foundation and Quantum Research Corporation of Bethesda, Md., provided staff support. Silicon Graphics Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., donated and maintains the computer (a WebFORCE server) that is being used as the Smithsonian Web server, and provides a mirror site for the Smithsonian Web site at Silicon Graphics Inc. SGI also donated the Indy computer that was used to develop "Ocean Planet Online." The National Aeronautics and Space Administration designed and programmed "Ocean Planet Online," and NASA will maintain the Web server for "Ocean Planet" for one year.

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