Museum networks in the Mediterranean area: Real and virtual opportunities

Abstract In recent decades the initiatives aimed at disseminating innovative, international networks have proliferated, resulting in new forms of collaboration between businesses, individuals and places, different for their activities and functions. Within local development policies participation in global networks has become a necessary complement in order to seize all the extra-local opportunities. For instance, museum networking is getting effective results with respect to the protection and promotion of the immense cultural heritage from which it draws. The aim of this paper is to highlight the new opportunities for collaboration and competition created in Mediterranean cities by the progress of telematics, with particular attention to the cultural sector and the role of museums in the development of touristic attraction. The paper points out there is a strong tendency towards the integration of the different forms of networks, which makes it difficult to operate a neat separation between real and virtual networks. The firsts are those created with specific physical structures deputed to host committees and scheduled meetings. The seconds are those intended to capture fully the opportunities offered by telematics and the Internet, and that only exist on the web. They have a higher openness degree in terms of accessibility and inclusiveness, allowing, for instance, even smaller organizations to gain visibility and to enter mechanisms of competition/collaboration with the bigger ones. Museum networks in the Mediterranean area have, in recent decades, multiplied. This paper will highlight the progress made so far in creating these new virtual networks and the possibilities that they open in different, not always explored, fields. Emblematic examples to which we will refer in the paper will be the networks of contemporary art museums. These, among others, take advantage of the visibility and image that the new eclectic and iconic structures of post-modern architecture can project internationally.