British Museum Collection Online

The British Museum has started to put its collection, and over the next few months there will be more than seven million items to view.

As anyone who’s ever visited it can tell you, the British Museum is one of the world’s great treasures, with literally millions of itemsspanning over two million years of history.   The very nature of the space means only a part of it can be on physical display at any one time. But as the museum relaunches its website,it’s going to make its entire collection available online, according to Vnunet.   To date images of around 275,000 objects have been uploaded, but overthe course of the next few months that figure will rise to more than seven million with extra images added over the next two years.   Mary Pitt, project manager of the internet servicesdepartment at the British Museum, said,   "The website is not merely a source of information about the museum, but a real insight into the collection and a natural extension of our corepurpose."   The new version of the site will have an expanded education section, a virtual tour and an integrated shop. It might even be the next best thing to being there.