Google Partners with British Museum to Offer Online Service

Want to explore the British Museum without flying 3,000 miles across the Atlantic? Google has partnered with the famous attraction to make this happen. It’s now possible to view more than 4,500 objects from the museum’s extensive collection online via the Google Cultural Institute. It’s easily the Institute’s biggest project to date, and is designed not only to provide virtual visitation convenience, but also to offer enthusiasts the chance to learn more about the art and artifacts before exploring the real thing. That way, visitors get the chance to do more than just “walk through” the museum. 

Enlightenment Fantasy Come to Life

Departing British Museum director Neil MacGregor called the launch “a very important day in the history of the British Museum,” and said that the Google Cultural Institute is bringing the museum’s 18th-century dream of being a “collection of the world, for the world” to life. 

“That Enlightenment fantasy, about 25 years ago became an Internet possibility, and today, thanks to the Google Cultural Institute, it is a practical reality,” MacGregor remarked. “Every person on the planet, whether they are in Brazil or China, Mozambique or India, will be able to walk round the British Museum. They will be able to use the collection as if it were their own collection and explore the world in their own way.”

The Tour Itself

Virtually exploring the museum is a fairly simple process. Simply choose the floor you’d like to “wander” around, and up pops a list of what’s available on that floor. There are 4,859 objects to view online so far, including one of the museum’s most prized possessions, the fourth-century Admonitions scroll from China. This scroll is only available for in-person viewing a few months out of the year due to its extreme fragility. 

Project Scale

The scale of this project is quite amazing, as it’s currently the largest space captured by Indoor Street View. The footage took 15 months to film, as it had to be done during off-hours. It’s even possible to visit the museum basement if one needs a “break” from the art and other historical objects, though the basement mainly consists of orange lockers. 

The British Museum joins 800 other cultural institutions already in the Google Cultural Institute. The virtual tour features specially curated exhibitions, including Celtic Life in Iron Age Britain and Egypt: Faith After the Pharaohs. 

The technology used to create the virtual tour is the same technology utilized in Google Maps. 

Google Cultural Institute director Amit Sood remarked that one goal was to “bridge the gap between high culture and popular culture.” If the tour encourages fans of Internet cat videos to learn more about British Museum cat sculptures, Sood said he and his team would have done their jobs.