Indianapolis Museum of Art
- The Museum's entire collection of over 64,000 works is now viewable online
- Users can post comments and tags about each work in the collection
- Original video content created by the Museum is highlighted on the new site
- Customized calendar streamlined administration of Museum events
Over the course of its 120-year history, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) has established itself as one of the nation’s preeminent art museums. Regularly attracting high-profile exhibitions from around the world, its collection of over 64,000 works ranges from famous images such as Robert Indiana’s “Love” to more esoteric items like Moroccan embroideries. One of the museum’s historical strengths has been its ability to make community connections. In recent years, the IMA has fostered those connections through the use of cutting-edge museum technology designed to engage and educate its visitors.
With its new Web site, the IMA sought to connect with a global audience by utilizing popular “Web 2.0” technologies, such as folksonomic tagging, blogs, podcasts, YouTube integration, and browser-based visual effects. Palantir worked with design partner Studio Blue to refine the site’s ambitious concept.
The site’s design was inspired by the notion that all facets of the museum experience should be accessible from any page on the site. Each page consists of several regions that allow visitors to explore and connect with the museum and its collection. Visitors can also learn about upcoming events and view photographic highlights of the IMA and its grounds, which include gardens and a nature park. Links to YouTube videos produced by the museum offer additional context into the institution and its community.
Palantir used Drupal, an open source content management platform, to build the site. Drupal’s modular structure allowed for a wide array of functionality, which was customized to meet the museum’s sophisticated functional requirements. Each work in the museum’s vast collection is displayed on its own page that pulls information directly from the IMA’s backend digital asset management system. This allows users to post comments and descriptive tags for each item on the Web site.
Palantir also developed a custom date handling mechanism. This lets site administrators enter calendar events that might occur, for example, on "every Tuesday and Thursday in November except Thanksgiving", and to share those events seamlessly with other Drupal-based sites for exhibitions.
The Indianapolis Museum of Art’s new site is not only an accurate representation of the museum’s cutting-edge reputation, it’s a virtual space that allows visitors from all over the world to explore and understand the connections between art and themselves.
A detailed technical writeup of this project can be found at Drupal.org.