DOT-MUSEUM (.museum) NAMED AS ONE OF SEVEN WINNERS IN EXPANSION OF INTERNET DOMAIN NAMES General public to benefit from unified museum presence on Internet

---

For Immediate Release - November 20, 2000

Press contacts :

Jean Miao Assoc. Communications Specialist The J. Paul Getty Trust 310-440-6617 jmiao@getty.edu

Valérie Jullien Communications Officer International Council Of Museums (33) 1 47 34 05 00

Los Angeles-The Museum Domain Management Association (MuseDoma) has announced the approval of its proposal to establish .museum as a restricted top-level domain name on the Internet. The approval was made by the board of directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that provides oversight for domain names. MuseDoma's plan will give museums the possibility of registering Internet addresses with a dot-museum suffix and will allow Internet users to recognize this as a sign of authenticity, ensuring that sources of information about cultural and scientific heritage are verifiable.

"We're very pleased about ICANN's selection of dot-museum as a new domain name," stated Cary Karp, president of MuseDoma and director of the Department of Information Technology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. "Dot-museum will provide a platform for facilitating and encouraging all of the varied and unique activities that are part of a museum's mission. Its existence will benefit the public, as well as professional audiences that seek online communication and education. We look forward to working with ICANN in the final steps of having .museum in operation within the next year."

MuseDoma is a newly formed nonprofit trade association created to obtain, maintain, and operate a restricted, top-level domain for and in the best interests of the worldwide museum community. It was founded by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the J. Paul Getty Trust and will have an open membership. The .museum domain will be restricted, with eligibility limited to museums and their professional organizations based on ICOM's definition of a museum, which continues to be discussed and modified as the museum field evolves.

ICOM is a non-governmental organization established in 1946 with over 16,000 members. It defines a museum as "a nonprofit-making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits, for purposes of study, education, and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment."

The J. Paul Getty Trust-in addition to operating the Getty Museum, Research Institute, and Conservation Institute-plays a philanthropic role for museums around the world and serves the professional field in many ways, including through the Getty Leadership Institute.

Since submitting its application in October 2000, MuseDoma's dot-museum proposal has received overwhelmingly positive support from museums, both large and small, from around the world through ICANN's online public comment forum.

"MuseDoma applauds ICANN's vision and courage in the decisions it has made and knows that this shared domain will help museums coalesce their efforts on the World Wide Web," stated Kenneth Hamma, director of MuseDoma and assistant director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. "It will be of special benefit to museums that have yet to establish themselves online. A shared domain identity is precisely what is needed."