The British Museum plans to digitize all of its collections, totaling over 5 million pieces, within the next five years, making them accessible to the public and reducing the risk of theft.
It also helps protect the collection

The British MuseumAnnounceThe museum will digitize its entire collection of over 800 million items to ensure that the collection can be preserved permanently and allow the public to access it remotely through digital means.

One of the motivations for the British Museum to digitize all its collections seems to be related to the problem of theft of its collections. In an August report this year, the British Museum revealed that thousands of collections had been stolen, including more than 8 historical artifacts.

However, digitizing collections can also help reduce the risk of certain items being damaged during exhibition, potentially preventing them from being displayed later. Furthermore, collections requiring extra care can be made accessible to the public online when not on display, reducing the risk of theft while on display.

Mark Jones, interim director of the British Museum, believes that once more people can learn about the museum's collections through digital content, if any collections are stolen in the future, the chances of finding and recovering the collections may increase through public reporting.

However, in order to digitize all of the British Museum's collection of more than 800 million items, it is estimated that it will take more than 5 years to complete, and it may cost more than 1210 million US dollars to produce the digital content. The British Museum is currently facing a shortage of funds and must seek investors who are willing to help complete this project.

The British Museum began digitizing its collection in 2020, and has now completed the digitization of about half of its collection, many of which were accelerated during the epidemic.

In addition to the British Museum, many museum institutions have actually begun to digitize their collections. In addition to recording images and related information of the collections in digital form, they can also provide more flexibility for more people who cannot visit the site to browse, or make it more convenient for more academic personnel who hope to conduct research through the collections to use them.

Prior to this, Google has already provided digital content in its arts and cultural services.Includes a large number of British Museum collectionsBut it still only accounts for a part of it.