The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture opened virtually today through an online site (http://www.nmaahc.si.edu) designed with IBM to encourage collaboration between the Institution's 19th and newest museum and members of the public. This online presence marks the first time a major museum has opened on the Web prior to the construction of its building.

Museum and IBM officials are introducing the site to the public during guided sessions at the Annual Legislative Conference hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation at the Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Pl. N.W., Washington, D.C. Sessions will be held today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, Sept. 29 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sessions are free.

While the physical museum is not expected to be built on the National Mall in Washington until 2015, its online opening serves as a resource for engaging the public now and gathering materials and accounts that can help build the museum's collections and inform future exhibitions.

"The Smithsonian is honored to work with IBM to create this virtual platform for the National Museum of African American History and Culture," said Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the museum. "This initiative allows us to share the rich culture, preserve the important history and make the African-American past available to millions globally. Because of this partnership, we can build a new community of supporters and enrich the educational resources of children in America and around the world."

A key Web site feature is the Memory Book, which allows site visitors to upload their memories in the form of a story, an image or an audio recording. An online map, which can be navigated, shows how these diverse memories are linked to each other and to content organized by the museum to spotlight people, places, issues and moments in African American history.

These registered memories, which give site visitors an opportunity to help shape the museum's content, will become part of the museum's oral history collection.

Because the site—built using social networking technologies known as Web 2.0—allows visitors to contribute content, it encourages a vibrant community of users to help both define the African American experience and promote understanding of what it means to be an American.

"We are pleased to provide our expertise and leading-edge technologies to enable this museum to come to life," said Samuel J. Palmisano, chairman and chief executive officer of IBM and a member of the museum's Advisory Council. IBM's partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture will help create a new type of facility—one that is not only being built for visitors, but being created by visitors. Technology is allowing people to be this important museum's first curators."

Early contributors to the Memory Book include the following:

• Former San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr., who recalls his childhood, his education and the civil rights era through an audio recording and photographs
• Michael L. Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund, who recounts his childhood in Los Angeles and his parents' decision to move the family to Tuskegee, Ala., for six months during the civil rights movement
• William Anderson, an osteopathic surgeon and a leader in the civil rights movement in Georgia, who uses a book excerpt to tell of his work with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Ralph Abernathy
• Jackson B., who remembers rolling Easter eggs at the National Zoo in Washington in the 1930s
• Kelvin B. Fowler, who tells how his great-great grandfather escaped slavery by hitching a boat ride with a group of fisherman and sailing to freedom in Virginia

The navigational map is created by the people who submit content and create their own "tags" or keywords, meaning people posting their stories can help create links to other events or stories. As users search through historical events or memories, the navigational map will re-set itself to focus on related associations. This tool that helps participants visually understand the interconnectedness of events and people in history. Museum staff will review entries prior to external posting to assure the appropriateness of content.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the first museum to design a Web site that uses the Web 2.0 social computing revolution. The site is based on cutting-edge, open-source programming frameworks, such as Ruby on Rails, for collaborative Web site development. It employs such concepts as tags, or keywords, created by the users to help organize the content. As a result, the museum on the Web is an example of the "bottoms-up" Web, meaning it is both a product of participation and an enabler of creating a community for site users. The site runs on IBM System X Web and database servers. The Web also will feature details about the museum's current and future programming. Key programs include the following:

• Save Our African American Treasures, featuring a series of workshops held in key cities across the country to help people identify and preserve objects of historical and cultural significance, such as photographs, diaries, legal documents and household items
• "Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits," the museum's inaugural exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and the International Center of Photography in New York. This collection of 100 photographs traces 150 years of American history through the lives of well-known abolitionists, athletes, artists, scientists and scholars, and shows how they used their work to resist negative attitudes about race and class. The exhibition will be on view at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington from Oct. 19 to March 2, 2008.
• The African American Legacy Recordings, a series of compact disc recordings showcasing the work of a variety of artists and scholars, including W.E.B. Du Bois; performer-activist-athlete Paul Robeson; poets Nikki Giovanni and Sterling Brown; and actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee

The National Museum of African American History and Culture was created by an Act of Congress in 2003. Its collections and educational programming will cover topics as varied as slavery, post-Civil War reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights movement. In addition to staging a national tour of its inaugural exhibition, the museum is scheduling programming in five cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington.

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