Case study title: Tailoring Access to Online Collections through Interpretive Resources

In brief:

To both help audiences learn about our collections and open more pathways to our institutional information and knowledge, the Art Institute sought to improve online access to unique interpretive content such as our growing archive of scholarly lectures, collections-based lesson plans, teacher manuals, videos, digital simulations, classroom activities, maps, etc.  To this end, we created tailored landing pages with common navigational elements and search results pages focused on three audiences: the Educator Resource Finder for educators; Multimedia for audiences seeking audio or video content; and Collections for the Online Collections visitor.

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Abstract:

To both help audiences learn about our collections and open more pathways to our institutional information and knowledge, the Art Institute sought to improve online access to unique interpretive content such as our growing archive of scholarly lectures, collections-based lesson plans, teacher manuals, videos, digital simulations, classroom activities, maps, etc.  Some of this content has been available in different places throughout the Art Institute's website, but access was not optimized to find and explore the breadth of what we had to offer.

A balance was needed to address different audiences while maintaining consistency and allowing for meaningful crossover of audiences.  To this end, we created tailored landing pages with common navigational elements and search results pages focused on three audiences: the Educator Resource Finder for educators; Multimedia for audiences seeking audio or video content; and Collections for the Online Collections visitor. For example, the Educator Resource Finder allows a teacher to narrow a search by curriculum and grade level.  The published resources are also connected to collection artworks and artists.  Meta-data and links are cataloged in CITI, our collection management system, and therefore resources can be published to any or all appropriate landing pages or audiences.

Additionally, Visitors are able to create “MyCollections” by collecting and annotating both published interpretive resources and collection artworks.  For example, a teacher could email students a MyCollection called Renoir Study Guide that may contain a classroom activity, the collection artwork record, an audio lecture, a video and a map.  

Presenter:

Elizabeth Neely, Director of Digital Information and Access, Art Institute of Chicago

Bio:

Elizabeth Neely is the Director of Digital Information and Access at the Art Institute of Chicago. Working with museum departments and leading technical developer teams, many of her efforts center on planning and developing innovative means to deliver exhibition and collection information to the museum’s varied audiences.

She has worked at the Art Institute of Chicago for almost 14 years. In 2008, she received her MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management with concentrations in Marketing, Technology and Non-Profit Management.