From time to time, as recently as last Thursday in fact, I’ve written about museums’ use of the Internet, and often I’ve thought, “nice try, but…” There’s still a lot to be discovered about using the Interest effectively and to its best advantage.
Yesterday, though, I discovered a particularly effective effort, after a somewhat frustrating visit to the Morgan Library and Museum.* I’d gone there to see Illuminating Fashion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France and the Netherlands, which ends today. It’s a rich show, and as I walked around I felt a bit like an opera-goer without opera glasses: I needed a magnifying glass to really see these fantastic manuscripts, and I wondered why the Morgan hadn’t supplied some for visitors. (I have raised this subject before, and I have praised the Nelson-Atkins Museum for doing so.)
Later, at home, I went to the Morgan website and discovered the online exhibition for the fashion show. Here, forty-eight illustrations are online, each with a zoom-in function that allows viewers to see the works and probably better than I would have seen them onsite with a magnifying glass.
Of course, the Morgan is hardly the only museum to mount online exhibitions, and this is one of more than two dozen at the Morgan, so the effort is hardly new.
But for visitors to the fashion exhibit, it’s a fabulous find (and maybe should have been noted at the exhibit?), and for those who can’t get there, a magnification of the exhibit’s audience.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Morgan
*I consult to a Foundation that supports the Morgan