Review of a museum website

Museum: The American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog

URL: www.museumofthedog.org

Mission Statement: The AKC Museum of the Dog is dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of the art, artifacts and literature of the dog for the purposes of education, historical perspective, aesthetic enjoyment and in order to enhance the appreciation for and knowledge of the significance of the dog and the human/canine relationship.

This museum website was incredibly well organized and presented. It is well laid out, colors contrast and complement each other nicely, with a nice ratio between photos/pictures and text. Each section link is labeled, and it has enough of them to provide the information one would want when looking at a website in order to determine whether or not they wanted to go to the museum in question. It starts out with a 'about us' section, describing the mission state, what the museum is all about. Then it has a little mini history section, describing about how the museum came into existence and a few points of importance throughout its history. Then it has a 'museum information' section, with the hours/days open, the address and location, and contact information. Useful information in its own section easy to see no matter where you are on the sight. It then continues on to a section describing current and past exhibits, ones that they have certain times a year and the permanent exhibit. So no matter what there is a permanent exhibit as well as one that changes, so each visit can be different. Its description of the current exhibit is quite long, but it provides the history of the pieces in the exhibit, the reasons for why this exhibit is important and why it was chosen; it connects the current exhibit to the permanent exhibit as well as to its self proclaimed mission statement, which is to collect, preserve, exhibit, and interpret the art, artifacts, and literature of dogs for education, history, beauty, and to enhance the appreciation and knowledge of man's best friend. The website certainly provides enough information, as well as how it is presented on the website, to fulfill the museum's mission statement. For any and all additional information desired, the museum also has a newsletter, and a section dedicated to describing said newsletter as well as information pertinent to signing up to receiving the newsletter. It also allows for donations of money or objects online, as well as certain perks for members. Overall I'd consider this website to be extremely effective; it is well organized and presented, it offers its mission statement and seeks to supplement it and connect each section to it throughout the website, and visually is aesthetically pleasing.