Web Strategy in Museums:An Italian Survey Stimulates New Visions

Museums must adapt to the increasingly massive use of the Internet, and use it to reach new audiences and find new ways of enhancing culture, or consolidate the relationship with their existing public. Therefore, defining an online strategy that conforms to the museum's mission may prove difficult. One of the challenges cultural organisations face in this regard is how to define, measure and evaluate their efficiency and approach. In the present article, we will study the digital instruments adopted by Italian museums to communicate on and promote their heritage collections on the web, and enhance the involvement and participation of audiences in the digital environment. Our aim is to present and discuss the results of the first online web strategy survey conducted in 2017, by ICOM Italy and the Italian Ministry of Culture (MiBAC). The survey and its findings show that Italian museums have risen to the challenge, by working on defining and developing their digital web strategy. The conclusion will highlight the gaps and some points for future reflection with a focus on open data. We hope that a wider museum community can adopt our monitoring tool, the 17 web strategy parameters, and share results.