Resource: Virtual Tours and Archives
Experience the internet’s virtual tours + archives from home. We’ve gathered the most impressive Top 10 (in no particular order):
Google’s Arts and Culture Collections (Museums from Around The World)
Innumerable virtual tours of the most prestigious international museums (plus costume institutes, community centers, and urban street displays). Going through this catalog will take you weeks, but it also includes a lot of the virtual archives listed below.
National Museum of African American History + Culture
The Smithsonian Museum has officially launched its Open Access Initiative. Images of objects from the NMAAHC collection are now available to view, download, and share through a CC0 license.
The National Women’s History Museum
Explore exhibits that visualize how Black and immigrant women substantially contributed to liberation or how women participated in WWII though the museum’s exhibition archives.
Delores Huerta courtesy of The National Women’s History Museum
United States Holocaust Museum
Experience their custom-designed, interactive online exhibition archives like gay persecution, Jewish diaspora in East Asia, or American reactions.
This compelling, color-coded timeline guides you through some of their most fascinating cultural objects from around the world.
The National Museum of Computing
Explore the historic components of the world’s largest collection of working computers.
Even though it’s in French, this tour will immerse you 360 degrees and 1.2 miles underground in the network of Paris cemeteries.
National Museum of American History
100 online exhibitions are available for your random exploration. Pro tip: use the search bar on the right-screen side!
Image courtesy of The Museum of Flight
E-Access to the cockpits and aircraft interiors through the museum’s 360° Panoramas and Tours.
NASA’s Glenn Research Center Virtual Tours + Archives
Glance through the research center’s photo + video archive or participate in virtual tours of their facilities and spacecrafts.
Honorable Mention: Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Museum's Xi'an Warriors
It’s in Chinese but if your browser can translate and you press “start,” the seemingly endless collection of terracotta figures of soldiers definitely leave an impression— they were found guarding the burial complex of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang (259 B.C.-210 B.C.).
Image Courtesy of Qin Shi Emperor's Mausoleum Museum and baike.baidu.com