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WASHINGTON -- Memorial Day draws visitors to the nation's capital for many activities remembering historical events, but at least one site here doesn't require travel, just a browser.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is using technology to accommodate millions of virtual tourists. Its curatorial staff works closely with the technology outreach staff to turn the physical exhibits into cyber exhibits available online. And it reaches a large audience: 600,000 visitors hit the site in April, and an estimated 5 million visitors are anticipated this year. The museum expects a total of 70 million Web page views in 2004.

In contrast, the physical museum saw 210,000 visitors in April and expects to draw close to 2 million by the end of 2004.

Extending Its Reach

The museum, which is maintained by the federal government, launched its Web site in 1994, when the World Wide Web was just taking off.

"The staff realized it was going to be a major communications vehicle," says Lawrence Swiader, the museum's director of outreach technology.

The original site was organized by the museum's current chief information officer, Arnold Kramer. The staff sought a way to reach and educate people all over the globe.

Twenty percent of the museum's online users are in foreign countries, with most from Canada, the United Kingdom, Israel, and China, according to Swiader. "Mexico jumped to number five or seven since we started our Spanish language section last October," he adds.

Most exhibits featured on the museum's Web site invite visitors to "Examine Key Artifacts," which lets them zoom in on details of objects featured in the physical exhibit. For example, there's a "genetically fit" marriage chart the Nazis used to educate the public on what the Hitler regime considered proper marriage coupling. Through Macromedia Flash and streaming audio, visitors can hear the curator discuss the objects' significance.

Zooming In on Artifacts

Technology also enables remote viewers to examine documents in ways unavailable through the physical exhibit.

Photographs of Anne Frank's diaries are linked to the text of her work. The presentation morphs from handwriting to typed text as each line comes to the forefront of the screen.

"We used sound and visuals to create Anne's world, her desire to be a writer," Swiader says. "We had a young woman read the words of Anne Frank. We developed a typeface that resembled Anne's handwriting. It is very thematic; we want people to put their mouse down and sit back and watch."

When the journals are displayed in a physical exhibit, the viewer is able to see only two pages at a time. Online viewers can read along and examine the books in a more complete fashion.

"Scanning is one of the major parts of our projects," Swiader says. "Getting high-resolution scans of artifacts that can expose the details is our objective."

Swiader says technology especially enhances one exhibit, the Art and Politics of Arthur Szyk. It displays tiny, detailed illustrations crafted during WWII. For the physical exhibit, the museum provides magnifying glasses. "But the technology allows you to get up close" online, he says.

Swiader says his team of 11 full-time employees, eight of them dedicated to the Web, work mostly on Windows systems.

"Adobe Photoshop is a crucial program for us, as is .Net technology on the other end of the spectrum," he says.

Not only does the online museum offer a different view of artifacts, it exhibits some items not available in the physical site. For example, the museum was recently loaned a collection from Croatia, but for too short a time to prepare a physical exhibit--so the staff catalogued the items and created a virtual exhibit instead.

Enhancements Planned

The Holocaust Museum Online has evolved from simply displaying text with photos to an interactive multimedia platform. But that's just the beginning, according to Swiader. The success of the online exhibits affects the way the physical museum organizes new exhibits; the staff considers how they can use technology to enhance the physical exhibits as well.

Already, flat-screen monitors present video testimony at most of the exhibits.

"In the past year, we have started to include interactive applications that run on computers," Swiader says. The museum also features kiosks where visitors can check the museum Web site and the Holocaust Encyclopedia.

As a next step, the museum is considering custom identification cards for visitors to the physical museum, Swiader says. The cards would provide supplementary information by category, based on a visitor's interests.

Then, visitors could get a "guided" tour based on those interests. For example, someone might wish to know what the Holocaust was like for a Greek female who was handicapped. The card could communicate this interest to different stations throughout the exhibit, drawing data from each station.