I’ve been watching the web feature the Metropolitan Museum* created for its American Stories: Paintings of Every Day Life, 1765 – 1915 exhibit with great interest. Like much that takes place at the Met, it’s not cutting-edge innovative in any way I can tell. But the components are 
good, and I believe they do two things very well: They introduce people to the show before their visit, to make the trip to the museum much more edifying, and they may provide sufficient interest to lure people who have already seen the exhibit to go deeper.
The exhibition web page contains an exhibition overview and four short summaries of its sections. Then, there’s a page of all exhibition images, with a detail, the artist, date, location and other details. You can click on each one to get the full image and a description, or you can mouse over each one to get the full image. Or you can view them all in a slide shoe.
There are podcasts — with Eric Fischl commenting on two of Sargent’s Venetian scenes and James McPherson talking about two of Homer’s Civil War scenes), with more to come.
There’s room for YouTube videos, but I don’t see any yet.
Finally, there’s a blog, written by Katie Steiner, a research assistant in the American Paintings department, with room for comments and comments on the comments. She goes behind the scenes, and I know museum-goers like that. Still, it looks as if H. Barbara Weinberg, the American Paintings curator, and Carrie Rebora Barratt, the American art curator who was recently promoted to Associate Director for Collections and Administration — both organizers of the exhibit — may contribute, but haven’t yet.
I’d like to see both of them chime in — soon. Some museums acknowledge that curators should interact more with the public, and a blog is one way.
I would also like to see the Met link to all reviews of the exhibition, good and bad.
The exhibition started only on October 12, and runs until January 24, so there’s plenty of time for that and to dream up more innovative features.
Photo: Buffalo Newsboy, 1853, Thomas Clear, Courtesy Albright-Knox Art Gallery and Metropolitan Museum of Art
* I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.