In the face of growing public expectation and the dominance of commercial internet platforms, staying visible and relevant online is a pressing challenge for cultural heritage institutions. As Merete Sanderhoff, a curator at the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, has written, €˜Today’s cultural user is not satisfied with being a passive spectator. She or he wants to be an active participant.’

For a growing number of museums, providing open access to online collections is seen as crucial to engaging with the public and serving their wider missions. While select institutions began exploring open access a decade ago, the practice is now becoming mainstream. In February, the Smithsonian released  2.8 million images  of its collections for unrestricted public reuse. This spectacular announcement followed recent initiatives by  the Cleveland Museum of Art,  Paris Musées,  the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others. All are part of the Open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) movement that advocates for liberal access to and reuse of public domain collections. (article)

. Coronavirus: how museums and galleries are preparing for the €˜new normal’ (The Conversation, 24/06/2020)

The announcement by UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, that a range of public spaces in England, including museums and art galleries,  will be allowed to open on July 4  has everyone in the cultural sector working furiously to create a safe, inclusive and welcoming environment to entice people back in.

But they face many challenges. On top of the swingeing  cuts to arts funding across the nations against which cultural providers have battled for decades, there is now the imperative to provide more inclusive and stimulating content to persuade audiences to return. (article)