Museum gets funding to promote the web

The Wolfson Foundation is allying with the government to fund exhibits about the internet at the National Media Museum.

The museum, based in Bradford, will receive £150k for the project — just part of the £4m that culture minister Margaret Hodge announced on Monday would be spent by 31 English museums. The £4m is provided by Hodge's department, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and the Wolfson Foundation.

"The National Media Museum has a long-standing ambition to create the only UK gallery exploring the internet and we are delighted to have secured this funding to assist with our fundraising activities," the director of the Media Museum, Colin Philpott, is quoted as saying in a local newspaper, the Bradford Telegraph and Argus.

The museum aims to capture, record and interpret the "internet phenomenon in an interactive foyer with screens displaying live information put in by visitors" according to the newspaper. It also features exhibits on film, television, photography and radio.

Now in its seventh year, the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund has awarded a total of £24m in public and private money since it was set up.

The Wolfson Foundation aims to promote the fields of science and technology, medical research and health, education and the arts. It was established by and named after Sir Isaac Wolfson, chairman of Great Universal Stores, and his son Lord Wolfson, the current chairman and a founder trustee.

Other projects that have won awards this year from the Foundation are the Egyptian collections at the Ipswich Museum, a display at Norwich Castle on its 500 years as a county jail, and several museums in Tyne and Wear.