London, ON (Wednesday, December 14) – Museum London will be receiving $215,000 over 16 months. In late 2021, Museum London submitted a grant to the Museum Assistance Program, which is operated by the federal Department of Canadian Heritage. The funds will be used to undertake the digitization, digital content development, and capacity building for 6,750 objects in their historical artifact collection. Due to the project starting this week, the exhibition London: A History will be closed to the public from Wednesday, December 14 to Friday, December 16.
The city’s local art and history museum has been awarded funds to help make the stories of Londoners more readily accessible and easier to view for generations to come. Their project “Museum London Material Culture Collection Digitization” has been funded by the Digital Access Grant and has allowed them to bring on three workers to help digitize their artifact collection. The project will:
- Digitize 6,750 objects from Museum London’s history collection
- Build a new, bilingual, searchable online database
- Develop a bilingual, online virtual exhibition of exhibition London: A History
- Develop a strategy for and purchase of digital asset management software
Museum London will digitize objects in the collection, prioritizing artifacts of value to Londoners. Community consultation, including those who have been historically underserved and/or underrepresented, will inform further prioritization for digitization and enhance understanding through recording the related stories embedded in these objects. A new bilingual, searchable online database of these digital objects will be created with the goal of increasing the amount of digital objects over time.
Digitization will also include objects currently on display in the London: A History permanent exhibition. Using these digitized resources, Museum London will produce a bilingual and accessible virtual exhibition with curriculum-tied education resources and videos that offer
expanded, present-day community insights.
To assist with the project, the Museum will also hire an experienced digital consultant to assess the museum’s growing collection of digital resources.
These funds are greatly appreciated and much needed as the Museum is looking towards the future with respect to improving its online presence, ease of access to their public database, and how people utilize them as a knowledge resource. The majority of their 50,000 strong artifact collection remains unprofessionally documented and unlike their art collection, has little online presence.
The Museum has received much feedback from the local community to expand their focus on the history collection and this project will allow the stories of London to be shared widely, easily, and long into the future for generations to come.
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada.
About Museum London
In the heart of Southwestern Ontario, Museum London overlooks the Deshkan Ziibi / Thames River, sits on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak and Attawandaron, and serves the diverse people of this region by providing a safe place of belonging where communities can discover exceptional art, rich history and new possibilities.
Twitter: @MuseumLondon / Facebook: @MuseumLondon / Instagram: @MuseumLondon
For interview requests, images, and additional information, please contact:
Mitra Shreeram, mshreeram@museumlondon.ca, 519-661-0333 x 4246
