Long Distance Relationship with Objects: Digital Outreach in Museums
Online collections are quickly integrating into the museum field and developing a new way for objects to tell stories. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has developed a digitized collection to help relay the stories of their collections to a wider audience. The significance of this is for people outside of the museum to be able to connect with the collections and what they have to offer from their homes. While the experience isn’t translated in the same way as an in person visit it still conveys a sense of accessibility in wider audiences. The Met has cast a wider net in their digital outreach not just through online collections but also through social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
The ideas is that digital collections are taking the content to where the audience is rather than taking the audience to where the object is. The Met is promulgating themselves as a primary resource for a worldwide audience, ensuring that they are not only accessible but also reliable and present. This is a huge step. While many museums are taking action to get their objects stories across, the Met is initiating a mission to bring information to them and pop up immediately when searched for. Anything in the collection can be accessed through a google search. This idea is changing the way we interface with collections, what we expect from museums, and how well we understand material. Someone might even come in with an already developed understanding about objects in the museum collection and they can substantiate and explore ideas by experiencing them in person.
