History of the Virtual Museum of Bacteria
Written by Dr. T. M. Wassenaar Friday, 06 March 2009
This idea of a Virtual Museum of Bacteria was developed during a leasure discussion between Trudy Wassenaar and Martin Blaser, in 1998, while attendeding a scientific meeting. Back in those days, the internet was still relatively novel, search engines didn't exist, and Netscape was the most popular browser. We decided to build a collection of web resources, and instead of bullet lists of links (of which there were many on the web in those days), we incorporated the links into informatives texts that could also be read as a stand-alone.
We wanted to give the visitor the impression of entering a building, where one could learn something about bacteria. By looking through a microscope, they pretty much all look alike, but by describing them their true diversity becomes obvious. So what would be better than to read about various aspects of bacteria?
The original site was developed with this in mind by a team consisting of a webmaster, who was 16 at that time, a secretary in her 60s who surfed the web in search of interesting sites, and the curator, who had to learn html quickly to understand this all. We never met in person, all communication was done on by computer. In October 1998 the museum went online, first with a few exhibits only, and extensions were built over the years.
The number of visitors increased steadily, so that we reached 10,000 visiters per month in 2003, and 20,000 in 2005.
By 2007 the site appeared a bit dated, and was in need of a fresh look. The webmaster and secretary had since left the team, so that the curator found a new webmaster and designer, who were willing to take on this challenge. Our plans soon exceeded our budget, as well as our time frame (we all have busy lives), that during this lengthy transition the site wasn't regularly updated any more. For a year or so, our museum was not in 'optima forma' but now we're glad it is back in shape, with a new design, better navigation tools and all links being checked on a regular basis again.
Funding
- The Virtual Museum of Bacteria received funding during its first 5 years from the Foundation for Bacteriology, of which Prof. Martin Blaser is the founder. With this support, the core files and bacterial species files were produced.
- In 2003 the Special Feature Files were produced with financial support from the Waksman Foundation for Microbiology
- In 2007 the Society for Applied Microbiology (UK) provided partial financial support to iniate a thourough revision of the museum, which led to the current looks of the site.
Publications, Press Releases and Research
- The Virtual Museum of Bacteria was presented as an Educational Resource on various General Meetings of the Americal Society for Microbiology (ASM).
- The museum was reviewed in ASM News in 2003.
- The museum was reviewed in The Microbiologist, the magazine of the Society for Applied Microbiology (UK).
- The curator was interviewed on two occasions, once by a student studying virtual museums, and once by a student studying Educational Resources on the Web.
Last Updated on Friday, 06 March 2009