British Museum puts exhibits online with Google Street View, including Admonitions Scroll

A google employee photographs items at the British Museum.[Photo/weibo.com]

After being photographed over three days by Google, the scroll, like the other 5,000 or so artworks, has been captured at "gigapixel" resolution and now allows viewers to zoom in at the level of the individual fibers.

Some other museums and heritage sites in the UK have previously used the Street View technology to showcase one-off exhibitions or part of a collection. And the British Museum is the largest institution in the world to open its entire collection to Google Street View.

The British Museum already has 6.7 million visitors annually. Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, said the project was not intended to replace the experience of a real-life museum but add to it.

The museum's website has already employed web technology, putting 3 million images of its artifacts online. But it is said the Google project would tackle the “library catalogue” problem, allowing viewers to navigate its collection much more easily.