Indianapolis Museum of Art,
gone digital

Archived paintings, sculptures, interviews and other data of historical interest — once relegated to the dusty back rooms of museums — are finding new dimensions of usefulness online, reports Reuters.

Following two years of market research, the Indianapolis Museum of Art has relaunched its website with links to flickr, YouTube and Facebook. The site avails about 65,000 pieces of the museum's collection to the public.

And where taking pieces of history from a museum was once verboten, interactive exhibits enable people to walk away with digital artifacts of their own. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, for example, lets art lovers download interview podcasts from work on display, then gives discounts to those that present MP3 players loaded with content.

A national survey by the Institute of Museum and Library Services found internet users visit museums 2.6 times more often than non-internet uses.