I recently discovered that several museums in the UK have “virtual tours”. This means that you can click on pictures of exhibits and even access videos and photographs from their collections. A superb example of this is on the Churchill War Rooms website cwr.iwm.org.uk. If you go to the Explore section, there is a link to the virtual tour. You do need to have Quicktime Player on your computer (if you don’t have this program installed there are instructions on how to get it available on the website). Quicktime is a program that allows you to view moving pictures on your PC.
The ability to move around is similar to that on Google Street View maps.google.co.uk which is also well worth playing with if you haven’t already.
Many museums now have a presence on social networking sites like Facebook. For starters try www.facebook.com/britishmuseum. You do not need to be a member of Facebook to access their page which is full of information about all aspects of the museum. There are links to other websites and photos of special events too.
Twitter users can receive daily updates of news and trivia from the Natural History Museum by going to twitter.com/nhm_london. Twitter provides snippets of information and links to websites with more in-depth information on them.
There is certainly enough information out there to keep you glued to your seat, rather than taking the train to London.
By Caroline The ‘PuterTutor
www.putertutor.co.uk
