The Louvre’s digital offering has grown considerably in recent years, especially since the start of the health crisis. Online ticketing, social media accounts, online store, donation platform… the Louvre’s digital ecosystem covers all the needs of physical and virtual visitors who wish to stay in touch with the museum.
Thanks to its accounts on social networks, the Louvre Museum continues to forge strong ties with its fans. Of all the historical art museums in the world, it has the most followers on Instagram (4.5 million followers) and Facebook (2.6 million followers) and has around 1.5 million followers. followers on Twitter. In total, the museum has 9.5 million subscribers on its official networks, with a strong audience abroad. On Chinese social networks, it is the most popular museum outside of China (more than 340,000 followers on Weibo and Wechat).
Every week, new content is added: explanations of the works of art, reading recommendations, #LouvreChezVous videos with commentary by curators, recorded storytelling sessions and reflection videos made in the museum. This content aims to captivate users and inspire them to come and discover the treasures of the Louvre in person as soon as they can.
With nearly 600,000 subscribers each month (growth rate of 70% over one year), the Louvre’s e-newsletter informs visitors of museum news. Informative, eye-catching and accessible, it has been emailed to 6.6 million people over the past twelve months.
The newsletter allows the Louvre to stay in contact with visitors and to promote the digital content generated during the museum’s closure.
In January 2021, the Louvre launched its online store, boutique.louvre.fr, dedicated to the collaborations that the museum has developed with partners. This new site offers a range of unique creations, handpicked to embody the richness of the Louvre and its collections. Prints, games, fashion, art of living… modern designers and brands are resolutely revisiting the old palace and its works by revisiting them in a new way. The museum’s online ticket office on ticketlouvre.fr will also be renewed by 2023.
The Louvre is preparing for a new and exciting phase in its editorial division: scientific publications are going digital. Two projects are currently underway:
– A digital scientific journal, in line with academic and university editorial standards. The journal will be put online on a platform dedicated to the humanities and social sciences. It will only be available digitally.
– Multi-format catalog books. It is necessary to reflect, on the one hand, on what distinguishes a book or an article from online content: longevity, citability according to bibliographical standards, its own referencing (in bookshops, libraries); and on the other hand, to what makes digital the best choice: to enrich published works but above all to meet the objectives of free access, to broaden the readership, to offer free access.
Since fall 2020, the Louvre has offered a digital cultural dissemination program and online learning opportunities. Some 800 professionals or volunteers from the Education and Accessibility or Social Services sectors followed art history videoconferences and participated in active exchanges or training programs allowing them to stay culturally fit and strengthen ties with the museum. Simultaneously, 460 beneficiaries from the social services and public health and accessibility sectors benefited from online conversations, video conferences and remote workshops.
The current health crisis has prompted Louvre Conseil, a service dedicated to sharing museum expertise and skills with partners, to strengthen the museum’s distance learning opportunities.
As international business travel came to a halt, the Louvre Conseil and the Department of Oriental Antiquities set up a distance learning program for Mosul museum staff. The program is part of the Iraqi museum rehabilitation project in collaboration with local authorities, the Smithsonian Institution and the World Monuments Fund, with the financial support of ALIPH (international alliance for the protection of heritage in of conflict). Thanks to these efforts, the Mosul Museum experts involved in the restoration of the damaged works have benefited from distance training and will be able to prepare for the restoration in situ with specialized personnel from the Louvre when health and safety conditions allow it. . The program also aims to train recently recruited teams in the management of museum collections and, more broadly, to support and support them throughout the renovation project.
To optimize the learning experience, the Louvre has set up a platform, the Learning Management System, which will be tested for twelve months. The platform offers online training programs to follow independently or interactively with Louvre experts on computer, tablet or smartphone. It offers engaging resources and educational activities such as videos, photos, self-assessment quizzes, virtual classrooms, and more. It is designed to encourage collaborative learning between participants and track their progress to best meet their needs.
Louvre staff will benefit from a new and improved version of the museum’s intranet site, “Mercure”, before summer 2021. The modernized tool, built with a responsive design approach, allows for smoother navigation and easier access by smartphone – a plus for those who do not have a computer to work from home.
In addition, more than 800 smartphones were distributed to reception staff and security guards, facilitating their reception work and answering their questions.
