The new IEEE Virtual Museum may be the only place on the Internet to highlight both Thomas Edison and the singing cartoon characters, Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Developed by engineers and historians, the museum is targeted to educators and pre-college students, as well as the general public. The IEEE Virtual Museum transcends a traditional museum experience by integrating the IEEE's technical expertise, resources from traditional museums and interactive technologies. It explores electrical engineering's history through animation, sound and video clips, historical photos, and hyperlinks to other museums around the world. The goal is to guide visitors through the global social impact of technologies that people often take for granted, such as electricity and recorded sound.

"This site is unique because it shows the relevance of technology in people's lives, not just how something works," said Kim Breitfelder, project manager of the IEEE Virtual Museum.

Debuted in February by the IEEE History Center, the museum was in development for approximately 18 months. In 1998, then President-Elect Kenneth R. Laker proposed an engineering history Web site aimed at pre-college students. The IEEE History Center solicited funding, which was obtained from the IEEE Foundation, the IEEE Life Members Committee, and the Trustees of the IEEE History Center. Research and writing for the site exhibits began in the third quarter of 1999.

Visitors to the site meet electrical engineering visionaries such as Ampére, Faraday, Franklin and Volta. Currently, there are two exhibits, "Socket to Me: How Electricity Came to Be" and "The Beat Goes On: How Sounds are Recorded and Played." The latter exhibit explains that Alvin and his talented rodent friends represent a recording innovation: tape recorders. For the first time, musicians could create multi-track recordings.

The majority of the text and photo research for the exhibits was done at the IEEE History Center by Breitfelder, research historian David Morton and graduate students from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., USA. On the technical end, staff worked with ScienCentral Inc., a Web development company that also designed a site for a U.S. Public Broadcasting Service program called "Transistorized!"

"We tried to keep the tone light and non-intimidating while still conveying real technological information," Breitfelder said. "If we can make it engaging, we can keep kids' attention."

IEEE History Center staff combed their own archives for material, but sometimes had to turn to other museums for artifacts.

Upcoming exhibits on women's contributions to electrical engineering, Thomas Edison's work, and microwave applications -- produced in conjunction with the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society -- are in development and will be online in the third quarter.

For more information about the IEEE Virtual Museum, visit http:// www.ieee.org/museum.