The National Virtual Museum - 24 hour culture

Impressions at the National Gallery (from Drawing Monet)
11.5" x 17", pencil in Daler Rowney A4 sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The weekend is coming up - what better time to have a nice leisurely outing to a museum or art gallery? But have you ever tried a virtual visit? I've come across this site once or twice before but was researching something recently and came across it again and realised I'd not shared.

So - first an introduction to the 24 Hour Museum and then some links to some good bits. I'm sure you can find some of your own. Please share them in the comments section if you do.

The 24 Hour Museum is the UK’s National Virtual Museum, updated daily with at least two new stories including arts and museum news as well as exhibition notices, reviews, features and trails. The site promotes publicly-funded UK museums, galleries, archives and heritage attractions and seeks to get the message about Britain's great culture to a broad online audience nationally and worldwide. (from "24 Hour Museum: About Us")

There are also events listings for us you want to pay a proper visit too! Here, for example, is:

• the listing for the next seven days in London - detailing 80 exhibitions and 30 other events. Click 'What's On' to find other exhibitions and events around the UK.
  
• This is the main exhibitions page.
• and this is the page for accessing the City Heritage Guides. Here's, for example, is the guide to Leicester City Guide
  

OK now for a very tiny selection of some 'good bits':

• Innovation and Diversity - A Trail of Artist Run Galleries in England
• WebSite of the Week: links to past websites of the week
  
• Arts Council England: Arts debate
• The National Archives: The Domesday Book
• The National Art Collections Fund - What's On
• The Turner Collection - Online at Tate Britain
  

Online access can only help to further education. The government is currently pushing the role of museums as part of the UK's cultural renaissance and while this is a non-political blog I have no problem about pushing that message wider. Here's some stats for you from David Lammy's speech on Monday this week

• 77 per cent of museums now boast a bespoke educational facility compared to only 36 per cent in 1994.
• 32 per cent of school visits were made by schoolchildren in the bottom 20 per cent of the deprivation index.
  

Links: The 24 Hour Museum

Technorati tags: art history