Review of U.C. Berkeley's University Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Web Site

Technical Information

Name of Site:
Univiersity Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive
URL:
http://www.uampfa.berkeley..edu/
Developer:
University of California, Berkeley Univiersity Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive
Contact:
uampfaweb@uclink2.berkeley.edu
Date site was last updated:
2/21/96
Keywords:
Art
Art museum
Art and technology
University of California, Berkeley
Pacific Film Archive


Review

This site continues to be an an online version of the museum, rather than just dealing with information about the museum and a few teaser images. Full exhibits are mounted on the site, which appear to supplement the real life exhibits with that are unique to the Web.

It provides extensive information about the museum and an online version of exhibits in U.C. Berkeley's University Art Museum. Hours of operation, exhibit information, extent of collection and admisssion policies are among the information provided. This Web site has vastly improved since the last Infofilter review. The use of unique Web features is exceptional.

This site is easy to navigate and the exhibits appear to change as often as they change in the Real Life museum. I looked extensively at the "New Child" exhibit, which had intersting links to such varied sources as an archive of 18th century studies and a letter to the Wall Street Journal.

As mentioned above, these make great use of the hypertext abilities of the World Wide Web and truly supplement the learning experience for users. The art and history of the era are linked through the use of timelines, which makes the exhibit richer, because cultural and political have links to the exhibit. These timelines give context to the information in the exhibit.. This site is a model for other art sites.

The Self-guided Tour of one of the images is a wonderful way to get children interested in art, and rivals any of the 'edutainment' CD-ROMs currently available.

Information about the program is interspersed with exhibits in appropriate places. The images are also well documented, which makes this a good site for students of art.

Notes:

The site includes viewing options for text only browsers. There is extensive information describing their projects and technology initiatives, which, I think, Web users will appreciate. They have obviously improved the hardware at this site as the connections and loading of data are much faster than before. There is not much information about when the pages were last updated. There are lots of good links to other areas of the site and the resolution on the images is excellent. UAM/PFA has provided a link to RealAudio so that users can download software and get the full enjoyment of the features of the site.

References:

English Server: 18th Century Studies
What the Wall Street Journal won't tell you


Link to UAM/PFA
Reviewed by Jaye A. H. Lapachet, Avery & Associates on March 26, 1995.
jaye@infoarch.com