Gender Issues and Museum Web Sites

Jonathan Bowen, London South Bank University, United Kingdom
Ann Borda, London South Bank University, United Kingdom
Eleanor Thoe Lisney, France
Sue Black, London South Bank University, United Kingdom
Nadia Blinova, London South Bank University, United Kingdom
Clara Baiget, Spain
Isabel Bernal, eIFL.net, Spain
Stefania Boiano, InvisibleStudio, Italy
Wera Grahn, University of Linköping, Sweden
Teresa Numerico, London South Bank University, United Kingdom

Professional Forum: Gender Issues and Museum Web Sites

We consider the provision of museum Web sites with respect to gender issues from a number of different perspectives. Design issues for Web access, the use of technology such as Web logs by women, together with some more specialist interests such as on-line gaming are covered. The differences in various cultures are also considered. In particular, the situation in a selection of Spanish, Italian and Russian language museum Web sites is presented. We include a small survey of potential visitors who are members of the British Computer Society BCSWomen specialist group. It is hoped that the discussion here and in the forum itself could feed into a larger study in this area to see how museums can minimize any gender discrimination on their Web sites, increasing accessibility in the process.