An online exhibition, also referred to as a virtual exhibition, online gallery, cyber-exhibition, is an

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...

whose venue is

cyberspace Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...

Museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

s and other organizations create online exhibitions for many reasons. For example, an online exhibition may: expand on material presented at, or generate interest in, or create a durable online record of, a physical exhibition; save production costs (insurance, shipping, installation); solve conservation/preservation problems (e.g., handling of fragile or rare objects); reach lots more people: "Access to information is no longer restricted to those who can afford travel and museum visits, but is available to anyone who has access to a computer with an Internet connection. Unlike physical exhibitions, online exhibitions are not restricted by time; they are not forced to open and close but may be available 24 hours a day. In the nonprofit world, many museums,

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

archives An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, and other cultural organizations create online exhibitions. A database of such exhibitions is

Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web is an international database of online exhibitions which is a service of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Overview Two categories of online exhibitions are included in the database: exhibitions crea ...

. Online exhibition organizers may use techniques such as marquee text,

display advertisement Digital display advertising is online graphic advertising through banners, text, images, video, and audio. The main purpose of digital display advertising is to post company ads on third-party websites. A display ad is usually interactive (i.e. ...

s, and in-event

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

s to engage patrons. Various guides have been published to help organizations create effective online exhibitions. The earliest museum with a physical existence to create a programme of substantial online exhibitions with high resolution images of artefacts was the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, the first of which, ''The Measurers: a Flemish Image of Mathematics in the Sixteenth Century'' and an exhibition of early photographs, were published on 21 August 1995.An exhibition of early photographs
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Examples of online exhibitions

International Museum of Women The International Museum of Women (IMOW), headquartered in San Francisco, California, is an online museum that covers women's issues worldwide. Since March 2014 it has been part of the Global Fund for Women. Creation and expansion I.M.O.W. was f ...

is an online-only museum that does not have a physical building and instead offers online exhibitions about women's issues globally as well as an online community. Online exhibitions include "Imagining Ourselves" (launched 2006) about women's identity, "Women, Power and Politics" (2008), and "Economica: Women and the Global Economy" (2009). *

Tucson LGBTQ Museum The Tucson Gay Museum maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBT people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of Tucson, Arizona and Phoenix, Arizona. ...

is an online-only museum that does not have a physical building and instead offers online exhibitions about LGBTQ history. The online photographic, audio, video, text, and other historical exhibitions include exhibits from the 1700s to the present day. The effort began in the summer of 1967 and spanned almost 50 years. * International New Media Gallery (INMG) is an online museum specialising in moving image and screen-based art. The INMG is dedicated to exploring current debates and topics in art history: touching on areas such as migration, war, environmental activism and the internet itself. The gallery publishes extensive academic catalogues alongside its exhibitions. It also hosts spaces for discussion and debate, both online and offline. *

Virtual Museum of Modern Nigerian Art The online Virtual Museum of Modern Nigerian Art is a non-commercial initiative whose primary aim is to provide an easily accessible educational resource that can serve as a first point of reference for students, teachers and art enthusiasts inter ...

– the VMMNA is the first of its kind in Africa. Hosted by the Pan-African University, Lagos, Nigeria this virtual museum offers a good view of the development on Nigerian Art in the past fifty years.

References

Digital media Exhibitions {{museum-stub