Bring Your Collections to the Web

Bring Your Collections to the Web

Your collections tell a story- why not amplify it? Sharing your collections on the web is a powerful way to amplify the stories woven together by your objects and their histories. It can also help improve your organizational operations significantly. Read on for four reasons why web publishing is beneficial for your organization and your community.

Sharing your collections to the web, such as the basket collection pictured above on the CatalogIt HUB,  is a powerful way to amplify the stories woven together by your objects and their histories.

1. Connect with your community

Sharing collections with your community is an integral part of museum work. Publishing your collections to the web not only helps tell your story but also allows your organization to more deeply engage with your community and reach a wider audience. For example, when the San Francisco-based organization Art With Elders (AWE) transitioned their fine arts curriculum online after the pandemic hit, they published the participants’ artistic portfolios to the web on the CatalogIt HUB, allowing friends, family, and the greater community to access and appreciate their art. “The artists are excited to see their work up online in a shareable format,” says Darcie O’Brien, AWE Exhibits Manager. “Viewers, too, are heartened to see the artwork, artist photos, and artist statements featured through our exhibitions program, which aims to raise awareness around the great gifts these older adults have to share.”

2. Increase accessibility for patrons

Publishing your collections to the web widens your organization’s audience and eliminates potential accessibility issues faced with in-person experiences. For example, when the staff of the McFaddin-Ward House Museum, located in Beaumont, TX, published their collections online in the form of a virtual museum tour, it allowed their older-leaning demographic to more easily access the information and experience the house while avoiding the accessibility challenges presented by an in-person tour of the 118-year-old home. “With [the virtual tour], those with accessibility issues can enjoy tours of the home and everyone can take whatever path they like, getting object details directly from CatalogIt data while the original items remain safe and intact,” says Todd Hoeft, an Application Developer who helped bring the McFaddin-Ward House Museum’s virtual tour to life.

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McFaddin-Ward House Museum's virtual tour displays extensive

details about the home, its history, and its objects.

3. QR Codes facilitate access to object details

Web publishing not only enables better accessibility but can also enrich the in-person viewing experience and your operations. The California Historical Radio Society, for example, implemented QR codes for their entire collection when publishing their objects to the web, which helps their team and visitors easily access object details with their smartphones and tablets. “Now, all our object tags include a QR code, a brief description of the object, and the object's identification number,” says Walter Hayden, the organization’s Collections Manager. “It’s super convenient for anyone to scan an object’s QR code and immediately view the object’s information on their phone.”

4. Items in storage are locked away and un-discoverable

As museum professionals know, most of the world’s collections are not on display in an exhibit space accessible to the public—they are locked away in storage. Even the largest museums typically only display no more than 5% of their collections at any given time. With over 95% of your collections most likely in storage, publishing them on the web allows scholars, researchers, and the general public to discover and access your collections, enabling self-service research. In 2020 when the pandemic first hit, Missouri-based St. Joseph Museums’ research requests skyrocketed, and with limited resources, they struggled to fulfill them. But they found their solution by publishing their collections to the web. "As soon as we switched over to CatalogIt, the nature of our research requests changed immediately,” says Sara Wilson, Executive Director. “Now people have access to see what we have in our collection.”

Researchers can access St. Joseph Museums' historic items online in detail, which

creates efficiencies in the research process for both museums and researchers.

Summary

Ultimately, sharing your collections on the web and making them accessible to your community and discoverable to the public is a great way to better serve your community, increase accessibility, be discoverable and more relevant in our digital age, and utilize collections that would otherwise remain virtually invisible, in storage.