Phil Getchell, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
Abstract
In June 2005 the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston launched a redesigned Web site that includes an on-line collection of approximately 330,000 artworks - every accessioned object. While this is one of the largest Museum art collections on-line, the publication of an on-line collection is commonplace in the museum world today. Indeed, the Web provides public access to millions of collections objects in museums around the world. Now it is time to explore new ways for on-line visitors to make use of this expanded access.
Keywords: collections access, database, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, e-commerce, licensing, print-on-demand
Introduction
The primary goal of most on-line collections endeavors is to provide access to and education about the artworks, through the publishing of curatorial and interpretive information about the objects. This information is usually drawn from an internal collections management database. In enhancing our on-line offering, the MFA seeks to move beyond this basic mission, and explore new and additional ways that on-line visitors might use our collections information. This paper will discuss the ways in which the MFA is beginning to use the new on-line collections to extend the reach of the museum including visitor services, retail, licensing and third party applications.
Background
In June 2005, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston launched a redesigned Web site that includes an on-line collection of approximately 330,000 artworks - every accessioned object. While this is one of the largest Museum art collections on-line, the publication of an on-line collection is commonplace in the museum world today. Indeed, the Web provides public access to millions of collections objects in museums around the world.
The primary goal of most on-line collections endeavours is to provide access to and education about the artworks, through the publishing of curatorial and interpretive information about the objects. This information is usually drawn from an internal collections management database. In enhancing our on-line offering, the MFA seeks to move beyond this basic mission, and explore new and additional ways that on-line visitors might use our collections information.
This paper will discuss the design and development of our new on-line collections, our vision for the future, and some results we’ve seen since the launch of the site and relevant features.
Practical Applications Of Rich, Comprehensive On-line Collections Data
Art museums have been offering on-line access to their collections for more than a decade. Ten years on, few question the importance of the Web in increasing public access to museum collections. For its part, the MFA views on-line collections as a critical means of fulfilling the institution’s mission. We further our mission by allowing on-line visitors to see even the most basic images and text information. And as we provide broader, deeper collections content, the MFA achieves a transparency and accessibility never possible on-site. Suddenly, anyone can find interpretive content, ownership history, and high-resolution images of the MFA’s holdings. The audiences for our collections are no longer limited to those who visit the galleries or purchase a catalogue. And the type and depth of information far exceeds what can be printed on a gallery wall label.
The MFA has now reached the milestone of publishing every accessioned object on-line. The on-line collections include a subset of the data in our internal collection management system: images, tombstone, provenance and interpretive information. In this respect, it follows the traditional paradigm for art museum on-line collections. The on-line collections also include over 100,000 objects with images, audio or video (some with as many as 40 associated media assets!).
On its own, this database represents an enormous information resource for our on-line visitors. But beyond this role as an encyclopedic reference, what are the possible applications of the on-line collections, practical, profitable and otherwise?
The MFA is now exploring how we can best leverage the on-line collections to extend the reach of the museum. How can we use the on-line collections to expand our relationships with current audiences and reach new constituencies? And perhaps equally important, what are the challenges to doing so?
A Visit Planning Tool
This newly-comprehensive view of our collection serves as a true visit-planning tool. Visitors can search for objects in a variety of ways, and each artwork is accompanied by up-to-date display status and location information. Most on-view objects are accompanied by at least one high-resolution image. To help find objects, we’ve developed an interactive mapping system that highlights the object’s gallery location on a floor plan. Visitors can also select from a variety of pre-defined highlights and thematic tours. The creation of these tours is facilitated by our new content management tools that link our collection management system to the on-line collections. Visitors can also build their own gallery of objects, and save it for later.
We’re currently refining this application so that visitors can “map” any group of artworks - their own gallery or a predefined tour on to museum floor plans. This printable plan will indicate those galleries that contain artworks on the tour and it will list the objects (with thumbnail image and abbreviated tombstone information) sorted by gallery.
These printable floor plans are designed for the general visitor, but they could easily serve the needs of educators planning a visit to the museum or other self-guided groups. In future, maps of predefined tours might be linked to the MFA’s on-line group tours information, and curriculum-based tours might be linked to teacher resources.
Licensing Opportunities
We are also promoting the business of licensing images for scholarly or commercial use, by simply prompting visitors to “license this image” by visiting our on-line image-rights resources. This effectively cross-sells image rights from the collections section to encourage further licensing of the collections and serve the needs of a new audience: designers and publishers (among others).
Currently, the true potential for licensing is limited by the time-intensive nature of managing image rights. Even with the use of digital Web-based license requests, licensing MFA images even for scholarly use is still a high touch operation and as a result the cost of the transactions is quite high. An expansion of our licensing operations requires that we lower the transaction cost, particularly for scholarly use. An expansion of fair use definitions is critical here. We’d like to see licensing for scholarly purposes be automated and managed using a standard permissions form certifying that “I agree to the following terms” (a format now ubiquitous in the software world).
An XML Gateway And Third Party Access
Building the new on-line collections also included creating an XML gateway onto the collections. Thus far this application has been used to provide content for MIT’s open courseware, specifically on-line course on Asian history.
The XML gateway was also developed to provide content to the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) at MIT. OKI is a Microsoft and Apple supported project that (among other goals) seeks to provide aggregated content and federated search across multiple institutions.
The existence of the XML gateway allows for all kinds of new, third party access to the collections. And our hope is that the MIT and OKI projects are the first of many.
The benefits of this type of third party educational use go beyond the MFA’s commitment to education. The dissemination of our images for educational purposes is often important to individual donors and funders.
Print-On-Demand
Perhaps the most exciting leveraging of our on-line collection is the potential for visitors to purchase on-demand prints of the artwork. The print-on-demand feature allows us to offer derivative retail product of potentially the entire collection without the need for inventory. Currently, we allow visitors to purchase archival-quality reproductions of over 300 of the most popular images from our collection. These are promoted across the site, printed in-house, and sent directly to the customer. Profit margins are very high, as raw materials are provided as part of an ongoing licensing partnership with Epson. But there is huge potential to expand this commerce to provide cheaper and more varied on-demand offerings (more on this below).
Brief History Of Collections-Related MFA Retail
The MFA has a longstanding tradition of offering art-inspired product to the public. We offer a unique selection of art-inspired merchandise - selling gifts that educate, entertain, enlighten, and encourage awareness of the rich artistic heritage represented by the Museum's collection. Each item in our shop has an artistic or historic significance and is inspired by the enduring artwork from the Museum's galleries. We sincerely hope that by shopping with us, visitors find a sense of the inspiration and discovery that accompanies a visit to the Museum. And, each purchase obviously supports the MFA.
The MFA has sold retail items throughout its 135-year history. From humble beginnings as a small “sales desk,” the operation eventually grew to be the third-largest Museum retail and direct mail catalogue in the country (behind only the Met and the Smithsonian). With annual sales in the neighborhood of twenty million dollars, the MFA had several brick-and mortar stores around the Boston area. Our direct-mail catalogue reached several million people each season, and sprouted an on-line store in the winter of 1998.
Within three years, e-commerce efforts were grossing over 3-million dollars per year. But holiday 2001’s sudden economic downturn and a saturated direct-mail market eventually forced us to retrench. In 2003, after many months of volatile retail returns, the MFA reorganized its retail division around its core mission, and sought to minimize risk, by suspending catalogue operations, closing most stores, and drastically scaling-back on-line sales.
For about 18 months, our on-line mix was strictly limited to MFA publications, which were supplied by a third-party. While this store was a shadow of its former self, it preserved at least some e-commerce presence for the MFA during a period of transition.
It was during this scaled-down phase that we first endeavored to leverage our growing archive of high-resolution collections images to create an on-demand Archival Print business. The MFA was pioneering in its migration from film to digital photography, and this positioned us well to try printing our own high-quality posters. It seemed like a perfect complement our on-line book sales, and it did not require significant investment in inventory or staff. We forged a convenient in-kind licensing agreement with Epson to supply us with the best, latest, large-format printing equipment. And we challenged an interested staff photographer to see how well the Epson gear could perform.
We were not disappointed. These on-demand archival-quality prints produced proved to be of very high-quality, and even though they cost us little to make, they fetch between $125 and $265 each, unframed (http://store.mfashop.com/31-952.html). Our very-profitable on-line “Fine Art Print” business was soon selling several editions per week, and has grown to several hundred per year, and contributed significantly to our bottom line.
Finally, in late 2004, after over a year of strictly book and on-demand print sales, we again ramped-up our on-line product sales. We are again selling over 1000 SKUs, and even without the support of a direct-mail catalogue, we are approaching annual on-line revenues of $500,000. Our goal is to gross over $1,000,000 in FY07.
Currently, we are in the midst of redesigning our on-line store, remerchandising our product mix, and possibly expanding our on-demand offering to include more-affordable posters and customized notecards.
The on-demand model need not be limited to printed materials. CafePress (www.cafepress.com), for example extends on-demand retail to apparel, mugs and other merchandise.
Extending The MFA’s Reach
As we grow our on-line presence, we are diligently considering many innovative ways to broaden the reach of the MFA. We consider it our mission to extend the arm of the MFA as far as possible - collections, content, product, and entertainment.
We want our content in students’ projects and in teachers’ curricula. We want our event information promoted in every newspaper. We want our images on third-party products. We want our products in stores.
The further we can spread the MFA’s reach, the wider our audience becomes: regional to national, international, and global scale - moving from our core visitors to touch new and emerging audiences, even through new avenues.
Most of the possibilities for on-line growth and promotion are obvious to the savvy Internet user. But many are not.
Of course, we want to aggregate content in popular new ways - podcasts, multimedia interactives, on-demand video. But we also want to find innovative and efficient channels that leverage our strengths and may exponentially broaden our reach with minimal investment.
In almost every case, we work with trusted partners to ensure success. These include Mediatrope for Web, Collections, Bulk E-mail, and RSS; Antenna Audio for guides and podcasts; Yahoo! for e-commerce; MIT for open courseware.
Priorities For The Future
We feel well-positioned to not only improve, but also tailor the visitor experience. To this end, we are exploring possibilities for targeting customers, customizing the visit, personalizing the offering, and even suggesting products or events based on preferences. The Internet is the place to try this first.
There is also significant opportunity, for example, to cross-sell retail products from related collections objects. Our printable museum floor plans might be packaged with the museum audio tour - for sale on-site or on-line. The “Director’s Tour” Audio Guide provides a highlights tour narrated by MFA Director Malcolm Rogers. Maps keyed to these kinds of highlights tours are loved by visitors but they are often prohibitively expensive to print.
Another possible marriage of collections and retail: suggested retail products based on user profiles and individual interests. This would allow the museum to customize its retail offerings and develop more targeted retail promotions that extend beyond the “walls” of the on-line store across other sections of the Web site.
But for this to work, collections data must exist and be aligned to support this sort of association. Specifically, there must be relevant keywords or even static links between collections records and retail product.
One of the other features of on-demand printing is personalized products. For example, current on-demand notecard printing allows users to print their own customized messages inside the cards (on a per card basis). The card fulfillment providers will even mail them for you. So you could select, fill out and send your holiday cards all from the MFA site. Is this a service that is of value to on-line museum shoppers? Is this a viable business proposition for the MFA? Evidence from the corporate market (www.cardstore.com, www.marthastewart.com) suggests that there is real consumer interest in these products, but the concept is largely untested in the museum market.
The future offers many possibilities. As I write this in early 2006, the MFA is only at the very beginning of our efforts to leverage our digital collections resources most effectively.
We are experimenting with new resources and products for visitors, new sources of revenue for the MFA and opportunities to connect with new audiences. At this time next year, we’re aiming to have data on the results of some of our efforts: what worked, what didn’t, and what we learned in the process.
Cite as:
Getchell P., Beyond The On-line Catalogue: Using The Web To Leverage Your Collection More Effectively, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2006: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 1, 2006 at http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/getchell/getchell.html
