Best ways to harness the web for museum/gallery collection access?

March 4, 2009 2:12 PM

What are the best, most innovative websites that provide access to museum or art gallery collections, or related art historical information? For each example, what are the factors that make it so good?

This can be in terms of style, aesthetics, useability, novelty value, whatever. Primarily I am looking for examples of how the capabilities of the web have been made use of in order to create better access to art collections and their supporting material.

Any suggestions? If so, what is the actual technology / tool / software being used? [Sorry, you can probably tell by my terminology that I'm a newbie in this area...]

My purpose in asking is to help with the brainstorming of new project ideas, for a website that I may be involved in developing in future. Obviously I am kind of a luddite in this area, but need to start researching the possibilities that are out there... So, any pointers towards blogs, books or articles that discuss this issue would also be appreciated!

Thanks all!

posted by Weng to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Best answer: I really enjoyed the online exhibition of Design and the Elastic Mind at the Moma. All I can say is that the navigation is quite dynamic and innovative, is pertinent to the actual theme, and it is done in flash from what I can see.
posted by ddaavviidd at 2:47 PM on March 4, 2009

Best answer: The Brooklyn Museum has put much of its catalogue online, and is constantly working on getting more up. They have a very open site where users can tag works and give feedback. They just released their API today.
posted by cmgonzalez at 5:41 PM on March 4, 2009

Best answer: One of my clients has a blog about this very thing.
posted by cogat at 10:32 PM on March 4, 2009