Fossils at an Exhibition

Related Resources • Museums of Paleontology • Lagerstätten • Fossil Links

Now that we have the Web, everything looks new again. It used to be that science was boring. Natural history museums were considered to be dull places. The stereotype was dim, echoing halls with specimens locked in cases, with nothing but a little card to explain them if you were lucky. Like libraries, only with guards.

But more and more, museums are putting their best faces forward on the Web, because in many ways it's better than any other medium. Instead of relying on press coverage in magazines or newspapers, museums can write their own material. Instead of hoping for a few minutes airtime on a one-shot television special, they can put up images to be enjoyed around the clock—and around the world. Instead of having guides try to show a crowd of footsore visitors everything in a marathon, museums can lay out a deep set of pages with something for all ages and every style of learning.

So how are they doing? I've been building a list of good online museums, starting with fossil exhibits because everybody loves dinosaurs. It's clear that museums can't compete with Hollywood for flash (like the site for the movie "Volcano"), and they can't compete for immediacy and storytelling talent with the likes of The Discovery Channel. But museums have deep stores of real, physical content, and when they can take that content and present it with even a little pizzazz, the thrill of learning beats anything the movies and TV offer.

Like other organizations that go online, some museums don't get the Web, creating flat sites that are basically brochures. Not New York City's American Museum of Natural History, one of the standouts in reality as well as on the Web. Its Fighting Dinosaurs exhibit, for instance, serves up animations, FAQs, links, images, and a virtual tour, not to mention a special highlights section for people who want a quick look around. Yet, full of content as it is, it's organized so you'll never be lost. And cool as it is, you just know that the real thing is still worth seeing in person. That's how to market education.

Some museums outside the United States take a subtler approach, perhaps a reflection of their national character. The understated University of Oslo's Paleontological Museum site, for instance, relies on simple pictures to draw you into the site, then blows you away with detailed, well-annotated images of the institute's superb fossil collection.

But enough of these descriptions. Tour the rich variety of museums out there, starting from the Museums of Paleontology list.