As the pandemic has spread to different countries around the world, governments have been forced to implement various health restrictions in order to protect their populations. One of the first things countries did was to impose lockdowns and stay at home rules. Some other countries didn't force their citizens to stay at home. But even, there has not been a single country that has not enforced some form of restrictions for where there citizens can and cannot go. Most countries were quick to close down all the places that post large threats to their populations. The most dangerous places where the virus could easily spread are large gatherings lilke sports events, concerts and museums. Most museums around the world have been forced to close down and remain closed. While this may not be the case for some museums at the moment, they may be forced to close down in the future. Therefore it is good for museums to also adapt to this situation. Museums have had to find ways to continue operating in some way during lockdown to compensate for having to close down their physical space. One of the most popular things museums have done with this regards is to go online.
Challenges for a museum to go online
The same way language classes, yoga classes, and concerts have gone online during the past few months, many art galleries and museums have already gone online. The important thing for museums to do is to find creative ways to share their collections virtually. However this is a challenge for smaller museums with less resources. Because the economy of scale just is not there. It requires a lot of money and initial investment to produce high quality content. And doing so is much easier for larger international museums that have thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands or even millions of artifacts or art pieces to showcase and are also very well known by a large audience. But for smaller museums it may not make sense to make such an investment simply because they may not get a good enough return on such an investment.
A great example of a museum was able to bring (part of) their collection online is the Moco Musuem located at the Amsterdam Museumplein. You can explore the exposition Moco Outside via an AR app and they offer interesting VR experiences.
How to overcome resource issues
One way smaller museums and galleries can overcome this problem is to pool their resources together and create decent quality online platforms that can showcase exhibits from a number of museums in one place.
