Sandvox Website Profile: “New at the Museum”

My Museum web sites cover everything from a year by year photographic and video record of museum displays and activities to our research and collegial leadership outreach programs. The set of pages for http://news.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com is subtitle HOME 2014, our year is named for its end the last week in July when our museum is surrounded by the local county fair. Otherwise we are the only regular operation on these 60 acres. The news site also links to articles about us in the press, on Facebook, with veterans, model railroaders and local artists. It covers special exhibits and events.

The general public: there is something for everyone in our museum and the opportunity for anyone to propose and provide a display. We work with other museums, historic societies, artist groups, model builders, especially model railroaders, authors, musicians and family historians. Our museum is a model and highly regarded as an alternative to archival museums. We provide a link from creative individuals to the world in general. We have a high visitor count augmented by the crowd which comes to our county fair. Our virtual visitor count is also high. We give guidance to online research and provide considerable content.

Our Coos County Fairgrounds websites are organized efficiently for the visitor. The main URL is long http://cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com However all subdomains, related sites are built as is the news site with a URL prepended on front with a DOT separating it from the main URL. So, this site is
news.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com
Our first year inventory and activities site is
2005.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com
Our excellent model railroad exhibitors have
modelrailroad,cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com
Our highly honored master model railroader Ed Schaenzer gets
ed.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com
As Director have
thedirector.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com
and the source of inspirations for museum making
inspirations.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com
My publications are found at
booklet.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com
and an index is available at
index.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com
and a very recent explication of display and museum work is at
museums.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com

My staff and exhibitors appreciate the outreach and publicity they receive from the web. In particular they like it that their short term exhibit at the museum has a permanent place on the WEB.

Hint, when our museum receives a particularly nice coverage in local or regional media, we not only link to that provider, we copy their web publication, and place a replica on our site, knowing that newspaper web sites inparticular are not very stable.
For instance:
http://news.cooscountyfairgroundsmuseum.com/in-the-press.html
covers an article in The World Newspaper, the largest regional paper located in the Bay Area ... smile, Coos Bay also calls itself the Bay Area and they call their newspaper The World, smile, all that from a city with almost 16,000 residents and one high school still called Marshfield which was the city's first name.

Yellow is used for attention getting, so it is a good color for a news announcement. The use of a sidebar adds continuity and coordinates the content. The graphic material selected lends dignity and importance without being heavily institutional and boring.
The title of the design is Sunburst, fitting for the site purposes, putting a beam of sunlight on the upcoming year.

I use two navigation systems (menus). Many of my visitors are not web savvy and watching them suggests providing options. By making the title banner and sidebar stable and with gradient color I am able to emphasize the importance of our "Policies" without advertising or providing links. Thus someone interested in joining in, providing a display or helping run the museum, is encouraged.