Making an Impact with Online Exhibitions

1. MAKING A DIFFERENCE
with online exhibitions
Colin Wight
Web Editor
The British Library
9 January 2013

2. Introductory remarks…
 From my perspective, not intended to be corporate
boasting!
 Not a blueprint for success, but about what we’ve
learned so far
 It helps to work in a permissive culture where you can
dip a toe in the water
 It also helps to discuss your ideas within a team
 I hope some of our experiences will be of interest and
of value

3. Online resources linked to physical exhibitions
 ‘Henry VIII Man and Monarch’: Summer 2009
 Website did not attract as many users as we had
hoped, but…
 Curator’s Blog had 56 posts = 3 every week; 20,000+
views during the exhibition
 Lots of podcasts, which had thousands of downloads
each month

8. Online resources linked to physical exhibitions
 ‘Points of View’: Winter 2009
 Website did not attract as many users as we had
hoped, but there were more comments
 Curator’s Blog was a great success, owing to a man
on a bike with a camera
 ‘London 1870s and now’ was dreamed up by the web
team and added to the exhibition at last minute!
 Using a Google map & ‘locative messaging’

13. Online resources linked to physical exhibitions
 ‘Magnificent Maps’: Summer 2010
 Curator’s Blog was actually written by the curator; a
first!
 Just 4 maps from the exhibition, with deep zoom &
hotspots
 Perhaps less can be more
 Stephen Walter’s ‘The Island’ went viral...!

16. Online resources linked to physical exhibitions
 ‘Evolving English’: Winter 2010
 Three curators now writing the blog…
 Lots of podcasts
 Map your Voice: a genuine crowd-sourcing research
project
 Twitter came along at just the right time for us
 A near fatal dose of Mr Tickle

20. Online resources linked to physical exhibitions
 ‘Royal Manuscripts’: Winter 2011
 Curators’ Blog already running before the exhibition
opened
 Decision to build the exhibition in Facebook albums…
reaching a secondary audience
 A very nice iPad app
 And Turning the Pages online – showing beautiful
books as well as we can

25. Online resources linked to physical exhibitions
 ‘Writing Britain’: Summer 2012
 Not very visual, so only a few key items on the web
pages
 All about showcasing the physical exhibition, which
was priced (during the Olympics…)
 Pin-a-Tale: a genuine crowd-sourcing research
project?
 Moderately successful, in a format we can re-use –
surprisingly hard to scope in terms of usability

28. In conclusion: a few points to consider
 Fragmentation – do your exhibition objects integrate
with others on your site and elsewhere, so they can
be cross-searched, and with similar tools (such as
zoom, share)?
 Rise of the blog / Facebook etc. – you could build
your online exhibition without a website
 Copyright and licensing of images: do you have an
access and reuse policy? CC BY, Public Domain?
 SEO – do the images have alt tags, keywords?
 Teamwork – do the ‘curators’ respect ‘marketing’?