Museums

This morning in class we had a brief discussion about museums, their significance & importance in today's digital age. Whether a particular museum displays a culture, an artistic collection, scientific project or historical exhibit, Professor Baldwin briefly questioned their impact in the midst of today's massive digital media & its wide availability.

This immediately brought to my mind the most recent visit I made to a museum:

The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space museum in New York City just a few weeks ago. I've always been fascinated by these incredible man-made vehicles, but had not had the chance to actually visit any or a museum devoted to them. Of course I had spent hours researching facts & statistics online or going through as many images as I could find of whichever one interested me at that moment.

So as I finally visited this museum for the first time, and looking back now, it's incredibly clear

to me the significance of museums today, despite the enormous amount of digital content & media we can find online.

It's certainly very convenient that we can do so much research or even all of it without even

leaving our rooms, but the truth is, if we are truly interested in a subject, there is no substitute to some 'hands-on' experience or research. We can read hundreds of facts online, but only in person we can get a true sense of space, mood, etc. As they say, it's in the details.