Click to the past

Original title:Klik naar het verleden. The accessibility of museum collections, archaeological finds, historic monuments and archives has increased enormously in recent years thanks to the placing of historically valuable documents and images of museum collections on the Internet. Anyone with an Internet connection now has access to information on cultural heritage 24 hours a day. During the process of digitising cultural heritage, a number of questions have become more and more pertinent: for whom is all this actually being done - who are the people who are interested in digital heritage? How and for what purposes do they use the Internet? How do they feel that the cultural heritage available in digital form could be improved? These are the central questions addressed in this study. The actual and potential users of digital heritage were divided into five categories: 'all-rounders', art-lovers, club members, collectors and browsers. Focus groups were used to explore what these user groups are looking for and which search strategies they use. Users of digital heritage are found to be people who also make physical visits to heritage sites and collections. The advantages of the Internet are the ease with which users can search for information at home and the ability to prepare for a physical visit. The Internet also enables users to orientate themselves rapidly, to ascertain where the information they need is located. However, users do have some doubts about the reliability and depth of the online information. The lack of an overview of the total amount of digital information available is also sometimes seen as problematic