WKU News

The Kentucky Museum has expanded its virtual content so that exhibits are available right at your fingertips.

The digital transition was sped up by the COVID-19 pandemic as WKU’s Amy Bingham explains in this week’s View from the Hill.

“I think the pandemic motivated us and virtually all museums across the country to get more on line.”

When COVID 19 shut the campus down in mid-March, the Kentucky Museum got even more intentional about providing content online.

“With the pandemic we really had to think about how we were going to transition over from physical exhibits to virtual exhibits.”

Starting with the popular U.S. Bank Art show that had just been unveiled a few weeks before the shutdown.

 People loved that although they couldn’t physically come through our doors and see the exhibits they could see it virtually.”

Work is continuing on two upcoming projects that will be completed later this summer.

”Seat at the table” which is an exhibit that profiles 11 women in office in Kentucky. We have it online now and people can go on and see all of the exhibit material for that.”

“This is a mural of Fountain Square Park. It’s going to be for our ‘Kentucky Women Rising’ exhibit. This is the backdrop for protest photos and things like that.”

Videos of students giving tours and other photo galleries round out the content which they plan to keep building on post-pandemic.

“People have approached us out in the community and we’re doing better partnering with other museums, partnering with people who can also help us create more virtual content.”

“It’s just been really interesting to transition over into the virtual spaces and make the message more accessible for visitors.”

Check out the Kentucky Museum Virtual Collection at https://www.wku.edu/kentuckymuseum/virtualconncection.php