Last week, the National Museum launched its first online only exhibit.
At a morning press conference at the museum in San José, museum personnel and representatives of InterNexo, a technology company that donated its services to update the museum’s Web site, presented “El Boyeo y la Carreta,” a multimedia exhibit on Costa Rica’s traditional oxcarts and oxherding tradition, which the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005 (see related stories).
In addition to the online exhibit, presented in text, photos and music, the museum’s improved Web site includes navigable 360-degree photographs of exhibits, information about the museum’s collections and research, and materials for students. Parts of the site can be viewed in English.
The next step will be to put all of the museum’s data online. Museum director Francisco Corrales hopes to get ¢10 million ($19,600) approved early next year for this stage of the project.
The new Web site already offers visitors information that they cannot get by physically coming to the museum, Corrales said, explaining that at www.museocostarica.go.cr, visitors “can go behind the scenes” and access information about ongoing research.
