The future of museums, and the way we experience art and culture, looks very exciting due to digitisation of museums. Technology has created exceptional interfaces allowing visitors to experience art installations using AR and VR amongst other highly interactive formats. Here are 10 reasons why we believe digitised museums are here to stay.

1. The pandemic cast dark clouds over the museum sector. Museums in the US have lost revenues of approximately $33 million per day.

2. 30% of museums and art institutions may not be able to reopen without substantial government relief

3. Most museums embraced digitisation to continue engagement with their audience

4. Digitisation has been a growing trend in museums as early as a decade ago, and the global pandemic has amplified the international interest in it.

5. Google Arts and Culture has shown curators and museum owners innovative ways to host virtual tours, over 2,000 museums around the world utilised the platform during COVID-19.

6. The Smithsonian Institution started using technologies such as “conveyer belt scanners” years back to reduce the time it takes to digitize. Most museums embarked on a digital journey in 2020.

7. The first long-distance reconstruction of a cultural architect was made possible due to digitisation in 2018 when two museums held different sides to a historical tablet and researchers were able to digitally combine them and translate the text due to virtual renditions of the two sides of the tablet. This is due to become a norm.

8. Only 5% of a museum’s collections are displayed at any point in time, thus, digitisation is of immense benefit to a museum as it provides an opportunity to showcase a larger collection.

9. Seeing digitized art online can persuade and encourage people to visit the museum in person

10. Digitisation provides museums and art institutions to grow ancillary revenue, a great commercial reason to digitally transform and modernise themselves.