BALTIMORE, MD.- The Walters Art Museum has launched a major upgrade to its collections website. It currently includes nearly 5,000 searchable objects available to the public—whether local or across the globe—and will grow even larger as the museum continues to add works to the site. This is a dramatic increase over the approximately 800 objects of the previous version. As part of a larger Walters technology initiative, this site allows everyone from a casual virtual visitor to a renowned researcher to browse works of art records from antiquity to the 19th century by categories such as artist, medium and provenance. The site was designed by Think Design. It is available at http://art.thewalters.org.

“This new collections website enriches the museums’ mission of bringing art and people together,” said museum Director Gary Vikan. “This is real-time scholarship where curators can instantly share new discoveries on objects from the museum’s collections with people who may not be able to visit the Walters in person.”

The new works of art site is easy to search and includes the ability to zoom in on object details, create personal art galleries and describe images using keyword tags. New objects will be added to the website daily. In addition, users can subscribe to two syndicated feeds (RSS feeds)—one is an “Object of the Day” feed featuring an artwork highlighted on the site’s homepage, and the second is a feed of new objects as they are added to the collections website.