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#MuseumWeek is here!

Twitter UK, Italy, Spain and France are coming together this week for #MuseumWeek – a week long event to help encourage museums and potential visitors to use Twitter to share. Mar Dixon, passionate supporter of both museums and Twitter has graciously allowed us to share her blog on the subject which explains why everyone should get involved.

Anything that stops the stereotyping that makes museums stuffy and visitors feel they aren’t worthy is a good thing!

Twitter has asked museums to sign up and tweet each day using the different hashtag/theme. Some of these are incredibly familiar (#AskaCurator #MuseumSelfie). I was asked if I minded, which is a good question. As a huge supporter of Museums and Twitter, how could I mind? I was a bit worried as the topics chosen are something CultureThemes does on a yearly basis but when I stopped and really thought about it – does it really matter? AskACurator will still happen on September 17th and MuseumSelfie will happen again in January 2015. What is important is to hopefully reach more museums that might not be using Twitter or know how to jump into social media to feel comfortable throughout the week taking part. Also to bring more potential visitors/advocates into the mix. I am really proud that Twitter has seen the potential with the museum sector – Go us!

What and When:

March 24 Day 1 – A day in the life (#DayInTheLife)

March 25 Day 2 – Test your knowledge (#MuseumMastermind)

March 26 Day 3 – Your story (#MuseumMemories)

March 27 Day 4 – Buildings behind the art (#BehindTheArt)

March 28 Day 5 – Ask the expert (#AskTheCurator)

March 29 Day 6 – Museum selfies (#MuseumSelfies)

March 30 Day 7 – Constraint drives creativity (#GetCreative)

Who: 
List of Museums in each country


The following is the press release from Twitter UK.

UK organisations already signed up include the Science Museum (@sciencemuseum), the Natural History Museum (@NHM_London), the Victoria and Albert Museum (@V_and_A), the British Museum (@britishmuseum) and Tate (@Tate).

The project also includes some of the UK’s lesser-known, smaller or more specialist museums, such as the Roald Dahl Museum in Buckinghamshire (@RoaldDahlMuseum), Cumbria’s Pencil Museum (@PencilMuseum), Pembrokeshire’s Tenby Museum and Art Gallery (@TenbyMuseum) and the Time and Tide Museum (@timetidemuseum) in Great Yarmouth.

#MuseumWeek offers a real-time, behind-the-scenes look at organisations across Europe and the UK.

Participating organisations will include the hashtag #MuseumWeek in their Tweets for the week, meaning users can follow along on Twitter. In addition, every day there will be a different theme including #MuseumSelfies, #AskTheCurator and #MuseumMemories.

Some museums and galleries will also run their own projects to coincide with the week. Historic Royal Palaces (@HRP_Palaces) will be giving users a unique insight into a day in the life of Henry VIII, and hosting a live Twitter Q&A with the former monarch between 8 and 9 p.m. on Monday 24 March.

The Natural History (@NHM_London) and Victoria & Albert (@V_and_A) museums will be partnering on a special #MuseumSelfies initiative at their ‘Friday Lates’ event on 24 March.

A full list of participating UK organisations can be viewed in our #MuseumWeek discover page