With internet, there is no need for our museum ?

ĐỀ 17/1/2011

With internet, there is no need for our museum. Agree or disagree?

AGREE (support  internet)

-         Being convinient : availability, no transportation, no service fee

-         Facilitating people to search, collect data and study and supporting scientists to restore history

DISAGREE (support museums)

-         Discerning the greatness of a civilization by watching and touching objects

-         Understanding history and being greatful to ancestors

-         Creating a mysterious world for visitors, especially children.

Museums have been existent until this moment, but some people claim them as unnecessary, especially in the technology – dominated world with the prevalence of computers. Others, however, still realize their undeniable merits and insist on their survival. I strongly agree with the latter view.

It is undeniable that the internet is creeping ubiquitously into our world in most areas of life, even in the domain of the past. Museums are believed to have little say when people just stay at home, surf the net, and the entire world of quintessence unfolds before their very eyes without physical movements to the museum nearby and payment for this service as well. However, can people really discern the greatness of a civilization without their glance at real objects and direct touch on them? Images on the internet are useful to provide us quick information, yet by no means can they reproduce the real world of the old days via the machine – like window. Only by visiting museums of different countries around the world can modern day people perceive deeply the glory of the yesterdays and learn to appreciate what ancestors sacrified for our today’s sustenance. In other sense, the internet serves as a mean to arouse people’s curiosity to rush to museums, rather than thwart the existence of these places. Not until visitors have opportunities to journey themselves through websites do they have the urge to explore beautiful destination, touch and contemplate themselves among flows of extraordinary things righ there in museums, as there goes a saying “seeing is believing”.

Internet is now also leveraged as an effective tool to color our museums surprisingly. To facilitate people’s journey through varied time-lines in the large museums where they can get lost easily, the tool of searching information and categorizing fuctions available at these places are beneficial. To many historians and reseachers, internet is, too, regarded as a reservoir for them to dig deeper into histories of a variety of nations worldwide to collect enough data and refer a host of sources for their studies in a relentless effort to recreate the histories, say, wars, to the original state, by dint of which a touch of reality is added to museums and makes it more appealing to visitors. At the same time, it is the usage of other cutting edge innovations, along with the support of the internet that experts can restore legendaries or myths of the long forgotten past, for instance, mummification, and give a sense of adventure to children. In other words, museums and internet are complementary to each other to enrich our world.

In the final analysis, no matter how advanced the internet grows, museums are right there, and they can coexist to shed more light on the past to satisfy inherent curiosity of human kind.

-         Curiosity (n) tính tò mò, hiếu kỳ = inquisitiveness (tò mò, tọc mạch)

 (adj) curious = inquisitive = nosy (tò mò, tọc mạch)

-         Mummification (n) phương pháp ướp xác

-         Leverage (n) tác dụng/lực của đòn bẩy (v) be leveraged : được thúc đẩy

-         Categorize (v) phân loại = classify

-         Coexist (v) chung sống, cùng tồn tại

-         Relentless /ri’lentlis/ (adj) : tàn nhẫn / không ngừng = ceaselessly = incessantly

-         Legendary (n) truyện cổ tích

-         Complementary = complement (adj) bổ sung, bù

-         Dominate (v) chi phối, thống trị, vượt trội, chiếm ưu thế

-         Contemplate (v) thưởng ngoạn, nhìn vào cái gì và suy ngẫm

-         Thwart (v) cản trở, phá ngang = obstruct (v) =  be an obstacle to sth = block (v) = bar (v) = impede (v)

-         Sustenance (n) thức ăn, sự nuôi dưỡng, phương tiện sinh sống

-         Merit (v)(n) sự xứng đáng, công lao