From digital archives to virtual exhibitions

Digital archives typically act as stand-alone digital libraries to support search and discovery by users to access its rich set of digitized materials. Additionally, content stored in these archives have been utilized and combined to create different thematic online virtual exhibitions (VEs). Such exhibitions are important complimentary counterparts to physical exhibitions, especially in the context of cultural institutions such as museums, archives, and libraries. Well constructed VEs can offer alternative experiences to the "real thing" and open up other opportunities that include education and learning, more content beyond physical exhibits, support for active participation and contribution by visitors through forums and uploads, online shopping, and others. This chapter outlines a number of concepts and design considerations for the development of VEs from digital archives. When supported by the right tools and approaches, creation of VEs can be highly effective and efficient with minimal technological knowledge. By considering the important issues of metadata, system architecture design, and development techniques, it becomes possible to generate a series of VEs to meet the needs of different user groups and at the same time cater to the constraints of the client computers, thereby providing the users the best possible experience in engaging with the VEs.