AU students who want to see the Hope Diamond or the Ruby Slippers from "The Wizard of Oz" will soon be able to just go on the Internet to view digital versions of these Smithsonian museum classics.
Smithsonian Secretary General G. Wayne Clough announced last week that the Smithsonian Museums dedicated to science and history would be digitizing many of their artifacts over the next several years. Clough said the initiative was an effort by the Smithsonian to reach out to younger children across the country, according to the Associated Press.
The Smithsonian curators will work with video game experts and Web experts to bring the artifacts to students in new and creative ways.
"Can we work with outside entities to create a place, for example, where we might demonstrate cutting-edge technologies to use to reach out to school systems all over the country? I think we can do that," Clough said in an interview with the Associated Press.
Clough plans to restructure the curriculum department to centralize the effort to reach out to schools. Smithsonian leaders admit the academics in the Smithsonian could do more to relate to students.
Geoff Blizard, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he thinks the Smithsonian needs to reach out to younger demographics.
"Any opportunity for a high school student to see images - primary sources - is a good one," he said. "This should make it far easier for teachers to obtain supplemental materials for class."
The Smithsonian Institutes are following the trend of other museums, including the Library of Congress and the National Archives, in going digital, according to their respective Web sites.
"The Smithsonian is part of a larger trend in digitizing records and the prevailing wisdom on digital records is that they provide much wider access to collections and in the process protect the original documents" said Kathleen Frantz, a CAS history professor.
Despite the amount of documents and artifacts available digitally, there will always be a place for museums in America, Frantz said.
"The public still values the real experience and still visit large museums like those in the Smithsonian system," she said. "In fact, a larger online presence means more potential visitors."
British chemist and mineralologist James Smithson helped establish the Smithsonian Institution in 1846 after he created a grant for "the diffusion of knowledge." There are currently 17 Smithsonian-related museums and other establishments in the D.C. area and in New York, according to the News Desk of the Smithsonian.
Smithsonian leaders do not know how long it will take or how much money it will cost to digitize their artifacts, according to the Associated Press.
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