Auckland Museum to launch in Google's new Cultural Institute

Auckland Museum only NZ institution to launch in Google's new Cultural Institute

Natural history enthusiasts can now get a taste of New Zealand’s most unique natural wonders with just a few clicks of a mouse.

More than 2000 images from Auckland War Memorial Museum’s natural science collections, including the Kakapo, North Island Brown Kiwi and Giant Powelliphanta Snail can now be viewed globally on Google’s Cultural Institute website as part of a new online exhibition, in addition to the Museum’s own Collections Online.

The launch puts Auckland Museum’s collection among those of the world’s most renowned natural history institutions, including London’s Natural History Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. Auckland Museum is the only institution in the country involved in the exhibition.

Among the images are more than 800 micro-photography images of ‘type specimens’, used for naming and describing new species.

Auckland Museum Digital Collections Information Manager, Adam Moriarty, says the museum is “proud and excited to enter a new phase of digital access to its collections”.

“Google allows us to bring Aotearoa New Zealand's unique flora and fauna to the attention of global audiences.

“As we embark on the largest imaging and cataloguing initiative the Museum has ever undertaken, we are primed and ready to share enhanced, digitised records of Auckland’s collections alongside some of the world's most prestigious museums. Moreover, we are openly licensing these images wherever possible, to remove barriers and encourage creative endeavour by anyone, anywhere.”

The Google Natural History collection uses state of the art technology to give a new virtual life to extinct animals and tell fascinating stories about our planet’s evolution over billions of years. Viewers come face-to-face with Jurassic giants in 360 degree videos, giving a better sense of how these animals lived, and what it might have felt like to be in their presence.

The Google Cultural Institute works together with over 1000 organisations to put the world’s cultural treasures at the fingertips of Internet users and are building tools that allow the cultural sector to share more of its diverse heritage online.

For this exhibition, natural history institutions from 15 countries created over a hundred interactive stories, sharing a total of 300,000 photos, videos and other documents online in collaboration with Google. The latest innovations in tech help bring the magic of these legendary venues to life, and give everyone a chance to reconnect with our evolution story and our planet’s environment in all its richness.

The new online exhibition opens today at g.co/naturalhistory and is open for all online, for free on the web and through the new Google Arts & Culture mobile app on iOS and Android. You can watch all the 360 degree videos on YouTube.

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