Museums Move Toward the Web

In a newly announced program, the BBC says it will enable more than 200,000 paintings in the U.K. to be viewed online.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about how Google was collaborating with Madrid's Prado Museum to allow viewers to get an up-close glimpse at the artworks on display. Well the Guardian recently reported that the BBC has similar plans. The Beeb announced that it would put over 200,000 oil paintings owned by the U.K. up online - only 20 percent of which are currently on view to the public. The need for the plan, overseen by a organization called the Public Catalogue Foundation, is explained on its website (my emphasis added):

The United Kingdom holds in its galleries and civic buildings arguably the greatest publicly-owned collection of oil paintings in the world. However, an alarming four in five of these paintings are not on view. Whilst many galleries make strenuous efforts to display their collections, too many paintings across the country are held in storage, usually because there are insufficient funds and space to show them. Furthermore, very few galleries have created a complete photographic record of their paintings, let alone a comprehensive illustrated catalogue of their collections. In short, what is publicly owned is not publicly accessible.

Right now, the Smithsonian Institution museums are facing a similar challenge (only one percent of its massive inventory is currently on display), and last month, they convened a panel of digital experts to discuss how they too can make more of their extensive collection available to the public via the Web. Dubbed Smithsonian 2.0, the event included keynotes by Flickr founder George Oates and Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson, and the entire group discussed ways to have the public become more involved with documenting and cataloging the vast archives that have been gathered over decades. It's a fascinating idea, one that we're looking forward to seeing come to fruition.

What's your take? What more can museums do to share their collections with the public?

Read More: See a gallery of images from the Public Catalogue Foundation. And read the Guardian's Art and Design blog for more information and reader responses to the plan.

Photograph: by Dan Chung, via the Guardian.