British Museum opens all hours on Google

The Bloomsbury museum is the largest indoor space to be captured on Street View, with 85 rooms scanned using a trolley fitted with cameras to create 360-degree panoramas.

Thousands of artifacts from the British Museum’s priceless collections went online Thursday in a partnership with Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) that will allow web-users to take a virtual stroll through its galleries.

The museum already has a strong internet presence and 3m objects in the collection are already available to see online.

There will also be a “Museum of the World” accessible through the site – a way of viewing the artefacts mapped to a timeline to allow users to make connections between cultures around the world.

To date, this has seen the museum recreated in the sandbox building game Minecraft, and partner with Samsung in 2009 to create digital classroom environments so schools around the world can access its exhibits.

A Google employee photographs exhibits at the British Museum.

“The museum is set up to be free, first of all, with the 18th century fantasy that it could be a museum for the world”. In person you would never be allowed so close, as they are so fragile and are only showcased for a few months of the year to help aid preservation.

Speaking at the launch event for the partnership at the British Museum in central London earlier today, Matt Brittin, president for Emea business and operations at Google, said the project is part of the company’s ongoing work to make the world’s information accessible to all. “The more they are interested, the more they want to come and see the real thing”.

The more artistic-minded should also consider visiting the Google Cultural Institute’s Art Project. “It is a huge organisational process for a place as big as this”, said Michaels.

Amit Sood, Director of the Google Cultural Institute, said: “It’s an incredible thought that now anyone, anywhere can experience the riches of their expertly curated collection, which is probably the most comprehensive survey of the material culture of humanity in existence”.