Museums: Past vs. Present vs. Future

Technology has the fascinating ability to create a new path for us in the blink of an eye. Up until the 1960’s the world had to listen to their music on vinyl of the radio. Then we evolved from vinyl to 8-tracks to cassette tapes to CD’s and now most of us download are music off the Internet in the form of mp3 files. Technology has also advanced changes in nuclear weapons, cars, the food industry, and so many others. It is scary to think of how fast our society has progressed and changed our world in such a short period of time. With access to the Internet, our knowledge and communication of information has been increased faster than ever and technology is constantly able to moved us into new worlds.
Another benefited/victim of the ever-changing technology is the museum business. These effects are discussed in the two articles “Is There a Future for Old-Fashioned Museums?” by Joel Garreau and “Art Museum Expansion: A Constructive Trend?” by Blake Gopnik. The biggest similarity between the two articles is in relation to the internet. With the first article, Garreau explains how the museum might move to being internet based so to increase people's interest in the material. Gopnik however discusses how the internet is increasing people's interest in large museum's and makes the museum's overcrowded, therefore they have to increase the building to accommodate more people and larger collections.
It will be interesting to see what will happen to museums with the approach of the 21st cetury. Most likely they will start having internet museums, but I believe large weekends will only continue to grow as more people learn and here about them with the spread of knowledge through the internet. I believe with the increase of internet knowledge, museums will become more interesting to society again because people will want to become more cultured.
Because of this, technology will largely influence museum expansion because the buildings will need more area to fit the larger masses. I personally feel that museum expansion has good and bad effects. Larger museums means larger collections of works, and I believe our society would benefit greatly from being more cultured, which larger museums will allow. I feel that larger museums do not dilute the quality of work, but does however does help spread the crowds out to help not dilute the museum experience. One can not fully appreciate the subject matter when they are surrounded by groups of people or feel like they are in they way. Larger museums mean though that people might not be able to experience all of the work. Therefore they have increased their chances of missing things they would really like. Larger museums and internet museums have both positive and negative side effects, but either way I think they are unavoidable and both will increase in numbers during the 21st century.