“The Corning Museum of Glass is the authority on glass, and we wanted to make as many of our resources available online as we could,” says Karol Wight, executive director. “We’ve made new digitized materials from our Library available, are sharing every single video we’ve ever produced and are publishing articles that address glass from many angles. Visitors to our site can easily access information about glass at any level that interests them.”
The redesigned site provides a new integrated search function that allows visitors to access more than 200,000 records from both the Museum’s comprehensive collection of art and historical glass and the Rakow Research Library’s collection of archival and reference materials on the history of glass and glassmaking.
More than 30 years of images from the Museum’s prestigious annual journal, New Glass Review, are now available to view online for the first time. An All About Glass section features more than 350 videos, 100 articles, and 225 recently digitized books from the Rakow Research Library, as well as glass term definitions and podcasts.
The Museum’s popular YouTube channel is now integrated into the site, featuring glassmaking techniques, demonstrations from master glassblowers, and interviews with glass artists.
Additional new features on http://www.cmog.org include:
- In-depth collections records including related multimedia, publications and exhibition information, as well as provenance, related objects and user tags.
- A collection set feature allowing visitors to save and share collection objects, articles, events and media across the site.
- Overviews of the Museum’s galleries, highlighting featured objects in the collection.
- Online registration for glassmaking classes at The Studio, the Museum’s glassmaking school.
- An improved calendar including a daily demonstration schedule, current exhibitions on view and special events.
- The Museum’s blog, Behind the Glass, is now accessible on the site providing a behind the scenes look at glass conservation, glass artists and the Museum’s events and programming.
- A mobile site, providing information for planning a visit on the go and access to collections information in a smart-phone optimized format.
The Museum partnered with IMA Lab, the media and technology group at the Indianapolis Museum of Art for the website redesign project. IMALab designed and developed the site, working on new solutions to bring the Museum’s various collections to the web.
The Corning Museum of Glass is the foremost authority on the art, history, science, and design of glass. It is home to the world’s most important collection of glass, including the finest examples of glassmaking spanning 3,500 years. Live glassblowing demonstrations (offered at the Museum, on the road, and at sea on Celebrity Cruises) bring the material to life. Daily Make Your Own Glass experiences at the Museum enable visitors to create work in a state-of-the-art glassmaking studio. The campus in Corning includes a year-round glassmaking school, The Studio, and the Rakow Research Library, the world’s preeminent collection of materials on the art and history of glass. Located in the heart of the Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State, the Museum is open daily, year-round.