LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art continues its innovative digital efforts with the launch of a new collections website that dramatically increases accessibility to the museums holdings. The new site (
collections.lacma.org) allows visitors to quickly search and sort images and information based on the users individual preferences, ultimately providing quick and easy access to LACMAs encyclopedic collection. In addition, visitors can now download nearly 20,000 high-quality images of public domain artworks from LACMAs permanent collection without restriction on use.
In 2011, LACMA first launched an online image library giving away 2,000 images of public domain artworks for unrestricted use. With the launch of this new site, the number of free unrestricted images for download has increased ten-foldrepresenting nearly a quarter of the total number of artworks from LACMAs collection onlineroughly 80,000 artworks spanning the full range of cultural history, from 2000 BC to the present.
Another noteworthy feature on the site includes a new interface that allows visitors to see whats on view at any given time in various parts of the museum. The On View feature allows visitors to plan their visit, previewing artworks in any particular part of campus; this information is updated daily.
In recent years, LACMA has provided unique digital experiences for visitors, including apps for exhibitions such as Stanley Kubrick, California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way, and Bodies and Shadows: Caravaggio and His Legacy. Additionally, the online Reading Room continues to be a resource to the public. Introduced in 2010, the Reading Room allows visitors to view a collection of rare, out-of-print exhibition catalogues (lacma.org/readingroom) that they might not otherwise have access to. As part of the Getty-funded Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative (OSCI), LACMA is currently in the process of creating a citable web-based publication. This initiative is a multi-year program designed to expand the ways scholars access and cite scholarly information regarding museums collections. The online catalogue includes an optimal reading interface that will allow users to compare related works of art, read extended essays, view high-resolution conservation images, maps, and videos. LACMAs first volume is scheduled for release later this year.