National Gallery of Canada Unveils New Site
The National Gallery of Canada (NGC), home to the most important collections of historical and contemporary Canadian art, including the extensive collection of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, has launched a completely restructured website. Using a powerful new search engine that makes its collections, exhibitions, events and touring programs much more easily accessible to Canadians and international visitors alike, making a visit to the NGC’s website both more informative and more fun.
The NGC’s five previous sites – the corporate website, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, CyberMuse, the NGC Foundation and Shop NGC – are now integrated into one at gallery.ca. In excess of 30,000 pages of content-rich information in both official languages have become simple to navigate and easy to use. Social media and a new mobile website are other key components that enhance public accessibility to the Gallery.
“This new site gives our audiences a “one-stop-shop” for everything that is happening at the Gallery,” said NGC Director and CEO Marc Mayer. “Now, an extraordinary wealth of information on the Gallery’s programs and collections are just a few mouse-clicks away.”
Simple and elegant in design, the Gallery’s new site is loaded with exciting features that will appeal to experts and neophytes alike:
Navigation is intuitive. A series of simplified tabs and section signs guides visitors seamlessly through the site. New headings that invite them to Visit, See, Learn, Shop, Give and Join are just the start of unlocking a treasure trove of information. A new collections’ application allows visitors to search by artist, by category and by century. Art aficionados and researchers will appreciate the enhanced Library and Research functions.
The Visit section of the site offers comprehensive information on everything that the public needs to know before coming to the Gallery. This ranges from admission fees to hours of operation, from accessibility to amenities and much more besides. The calendar function is one of the site’s great features. It gives visitors a complete and up-to-the-minute guide to the Gallery’s exhibitions and programs. A new i-Calendar function allows them to save events they would like to attend directly into their computers or smart-phones.
Retooled for the social media age, the new corporate site features a blog written by staff from all parts of the Gallery which is designed to not only keep people informed but also to let them peek behind the scenes. Public comments can now be posted. The new site enables users to share pages with friends and family and tell the Gallery if they “like” what they see.
The National Gallery of Canada boasts one of the largest On Tour exhibition programs in the world and showcases over 20 exhibitions in 11 cities or more across Canada in any given year. Also, as a result of recently-formed partnerships with museums in Edmonton and Toronto – the National Gallery of Canada@the Art Gallery of Alberta and the National Gallery of Canada@the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art – the NGC also showcases works from its collection on a longer-term basis. Through the new website, the public can now easily find out which exhibition is on view at their nearest geographic location.
In addition to accepting credit cards, a new PayPal service makes it easier to purchase items online, whether it is for merchandise at the Bookstore or a Gallery membership. Tickets for special exhibitions are available through ShopNGC which links directly to Ticketmaster.