Dear Professional Colleagues,
We are sending herewith a book chapter proposal to you to contribute to the forthcoming book on “Online Exhibitions: a handbook to library, archival & museum professionals”. We shall be grateful if you kindly contribute a chapter to this book. Please do pass on this message to your colleagues if any one is interested in contributing a chapter which is either directly or indirectly related to this book theme. For details about the book, please see the below given proposal. We are sorry for the inconvenience due to cross posting of this mail.
With best regards,
Prof. CK RAMAIAH


CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTER
Proposal Submission Deadline: 20 May 2009

Online Exhibitions: a handbook to library, archival & museum professionals
A book edited by
Prof. Chennupati K. Ramaiah and Prof. N Bhakthavatsala Reddy
Dravidian University, Kuppam, A.P. India - 517 425.

Introduction
After the introduction of computer and communication technologies, the physical exhibitions have taken the shape of online or virtual exhibitions which are much more economical and useful in all directions. Day-by-day new tools, techniques and technologies are coming into the market and they are helping the designers to produce much more attractive, useful and educative online exhibitions that are able to give almost the same feeling or experience to the visitors.

Online exhibition is an event which can be viewed right on computers using Internet any where, any place and any time. It is best way of disseminating information in digital form including exhibiting products, artefacts and educating visitors on any topic. Virtual Exhibition is the collection of digital replicas of real events or objects developed with the help of multimedia and virtual reality tools and produced a simulated environment in a PC and delivered through Web so that users will get the same satisfaction as they are seeing or using the physical objects in difference areas. The difference between online and virtual exhibition is marginal. All virtual exhibitions are online exhibitions but not vice versa. Normally all virtual exhibitions provide a simulated real environment using Virtual Reality tools which is a bit more difficult, expensive and time consuming to develop than a simple online exhibition. Unlike traditional exhibitions, these exhibitions could be viewed free of cost, at their own convenience and in their own time zone.

Online exhibitions provide unique opportunities for institutions to promote collections, to recognize donors, and to further their educational objectives. The use of new media tools in the production and delivery of online exhibitions made lot of impact on the visitors so the demarking lines between the physical and virtual representation become blur.

The Major institutions those are dealing with cultural heritage information including archives, museums, libraries, archaeological sites & monuments, cultural & heritage centres, and academic institutions. Online exhibitions are being used as a flexible and modern tool for delivering heritage information to the children and public. Computers, telecommunication networks and other IT tools are effectively used for all activities of these institutions to different forms (books, manuscripts, artifacts, drawings, paintings, etc) could be made available to global audience. All the developed counties are making use online exhibitions as tools to disseminate their cultural heritage information to educate their youth and also attract tourists and contributing to their economy.

Aim and Objectives of the Book: This book aims to provide the latest knowledge, research results, and innovations in the area of online exhibitions and their applications in different sectors. The main objective of this book is to provide an overview of the research and development work being done related to online or virtual exhibitions so that professionals who are interested in general would get benefited by the experience of the experts in this area. It will cover three important aspects of online exhibitions: technical, educational and social. Some of the chapters will focus on a particular aspect while others will explore the interaction between these three aspects, and their impact on the future developments in Cultural Informatics.

Target Audience: The target audience of this book will include users, developers, and researchers working with online or virtual exhibitions particularly museums, libraries, universities, art, cultural and heritage institutions who are supposed to be major players in producing online exhibitions however, some people related to art and industry are also showing interest in producing online exhibitions. This book may also be used as reference for advanced courses in Heritage and Cultural Informatics.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to the following:
•General issues related to online/virtual exhibitions
•Design and development of online/virtual exhibitions;
•Online/virtual exhibition development tools;
•User interfaces, authoring tools & techniques
•Use & user studies of online/virtual exhibitions
•Online/virtual exhibitions applications in education;
•Impact of online/virtual exhibitions on various types of users and on society;
•Online/virtual learning environments;
•Customisation and adaptability of online/virtual exhibitions
•Multimedia and virtual environments;
•Cost-effectiveness and outreaching programmes
•Real world vs. virtual experience of visitors;
•Specific online exhibition projects and applications
•Ongoing and future developments and trends in online/virtual exhibitions
•Online/virtual exhibition standards;

Please send both original research and review papers as book chapter relating to online/virtual exhibitions that are related to any one of the topics mentioned above which may be of interest to library, archival, heritage, museums, industrial, marketing and IT professionals. In addition to the above mentioned broad areas, you may choose any other area related to online exhibitions to write a chapter for this book.

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit their book chapter title along with an abstract (about 400-500 words) before 20 May, 2009. This will help us in avoiding duplications and better coverage of all areas related to online exhibitions. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by May 25, 2009 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by July 31, 2009. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. This book is scheduled to be in the month of November 2009.

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (preferably in MS Word document format) to: Prof. Chennupati K. Ramaiah,
Department of Information Science,
Dravidian University, Kuppam, A.P. INDIA - 517 425.
Tel.: +91-9396681401; Fax: 08570-278230; E-mail: chennupati\_kramaiah@yahoo.com