OTTAWA, June 1, 2009 - The Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, today launched the completely revamped virtualmuseum.ca website.
"The revamped virtualmuseum.ca is a unique and exciting example of what art and culture can look like in the digital age. Easy access, customized content, diversity, and lots of great Canadian and international content will appeal to a wide audience," said Minister Moore.
To take advantage of new Web technologies (Web 2.0), a specialized team at the Department of Canadian Heritage significantly redesigned the website. The goal was to expand programs and services and encourage more people to take part in learning about Canada's heritage.
New features at virtualmuseum.ca include:
- the Teachers' Centre to help educators bring museums into their classrooms with customized content that draws on texts, images, audio/video clips, and flash animations;
- online boutiques from Canadian museums presented through a partnership with the Canadian Museums Association;
- a new and powerful internal search engine with faceted browsing that will help users easily find what they want through information retrieval that seamlessly blends query results from multiple data sources; and
- a bilingual source of information and news about museums and exploratory projects.
Another key feature at virtualmuseum.ca is "My VMC," where visitors can create their own personal online museums by linking to virtual exhibits and interactive activities and then adding their own comments.
virtualmuseum.ca is designed for Canadians of all stripes: women and men of all ages, students and educators, heritage professionals, and those who are simply interested in our cultural heritage.
This interactive space highlights more than 500 virtual exhibits and an impressive image gallery, the result of cooperation between the Department of Canadian Heritage and its 1,300 museum-community members. Museums add new content every month.
Explore your Canadian museum space! Visit virtualmuseum.ca.
Deirdra McCracken Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages
819-997-7788
deirdra.mccracken@pch.gc.ca
Media Relations
Canadian Heritage
819-994-9101
1-866-569-6155
