Virtual Connections: How Museums are Engaging with Sheltered Visitors
Although the doors were closed at museums across the United States and the world, many exhibits were kept open through virtual tours and digital collections. For many communities, museums serve as central features, supporting education, fellowship, hobbyists, and even careers. With stress mounting and access to leisure activities limited throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, many institutions stepped up to provide their communities and people everywhere with access to their favorite collections. Here are four institutions that have made virtual innovations in the museum community:
The Smithsonian
One of the most notable names in the museum industry, the collections housed in the Smithsonian buildings are available online to anyone with a computer. With millions of digital records, there are seemingly endless artifacts, paintings pictures, and scientific exhibitions to pore over. Whether you know what you are interested in viewing or wish to roam the collection like one would walk the exhibit halls, the Smithsonian website allows for specific searches, or simply select a category for the site to populate your screen with a sample of the collection. Featuring quality photos of each piece next to detailed descriptions of the item and its history, the website is user-friendly and hosts a seemingly never-ending collection.
Google Art and Culture
While Google is no museum, it is a leading innovator in technology and curating online experiences. Few organizations in the world compare to Google’s innovations, so it is fitting that Google created one of the best virtual museum collections in the world. Because the site does not belong to any museum, it features over 3,500 museums and cultural sites in clear, easy-to-use formats. The site offers hundreds of virtual tours, virtual reality visits, and 360° views of the world’s greatest galleries, palaces, cultural sites, museums, ruins, and more. Google’s technology allows you to navigate the virtual world as if you are walking through it yourself. Providing endless options for viewing, one can captivate themselves for as many hours as they wish with a collection and format like Google’s Art and Culture web page.
The National Gallery of Art
Located in Washington D.C. but devoted to serving the art-viewing needs of the whole United States, the National Gallery of Art now reaches the whole world through the internet. Not only does their website feature detailed images of the pieces in their collection, but it also provides detailed overviews, provenance, and the history of the exhibition. For those interested in more than just the pieces in the collection, the NGA website archives store lectures, videos, and films dating back to 1941. In addition to their website, the NGA offers an app for children that entertains and educates about art in an effort to develop a lifelong appreciation for art among young people. The gallery offers entertainment for all ages from children to adults making it one of the most approachable online museum experiences available.
The British Museum
A world-renowned collection, the British Museum also offers a renowned online experience of its collections accessible to the whole world. The museum website boasts one of the most comprehensive digital collections coupled with one of the best virtual experiences. Powered by Google, virtual tours dedicated to each exhibit allow visitors to stroll through the digital collections just as they would in person. Navigating the museum website and virtual collection just as one would navigate the museum itself adds to a unique virtual experience that is innovative and industry-leading.
Museums remain some of the most important institutions in the educational, artistic, and leisure categories of many lives. The innovation of these four groups serve as examples of what the museum industry can achieve in order to continue reaching sheltered visitors or those that live across the country, continent, or even the world.
NMBL Strategies’ Role
When NMBL Strategies selected the St. Louis Sports Commission as one of their contest winners, their Managing Director of Nonprofit Services, Dion Brown, was glad to share some of his best practices for adopting culturally responsive strategies and navigating challenging situations. During this time of the pandemic, he is focused on Nonprofit Strategy for the Sports Commission as they work through issues like revenues that have been minimized because the events they produce have been postponed or canceled. NMBL is analyzing current revenue streams and providing a mixture of optimization of the current streams, as well as working to produce new ones. As many nonprofits face similar challenges to the Sports Commission, NMBL Strategies is proud to offer consultants likes Brown, who have real-world experience and have lived through the roles they provide. As the world navigates a reopening process, NMBL Strategies is helping the St. Louis Sports Commission get back in the game.
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