Online marketplace for scientific museum exhibits
The ‘Promotion and support of the transfer of scientific touring exhibitions at European level’ (E-Castex) project was developed to assemble information regarding Scientific Touring Exhibitions (STEX) in an online database. The database, named ‘Extra’, was launched at the 2008 Annual Conference of the European Network for Science Centres and Museums (Ecsite). Extra provides a portal to the European travelling exhibition market and is a crucial tool linking science centres and museums, natural history museums, aquariums, planetariums, zoos and botanical gardens, as well as exhibition developers. In conclusion, increased usage and updates to the Extra database should greatly enhance visibility of exhibition items, expanding and uniting the marketplace and potentially decreasing the cost of preparing exhibitions while increasing quality.
