Research Guides: HIST 100 Stuff: Objects and Their (Hi)Stories (Spring 2023): Finding Museums

Finding Museum Exhibits

Using Google and other search engines, search museum with your topic, then limit the search to .edu .org or .gov.
Examples:

Google Search for Bicycle Museums, limited to .org
Use advanced search setting to limit domain
DuckDuckGo search for Bicycle museums with a .edu domian
Add site:.edu to search
Bing Search for bicycle museum limited to .gov websites
Use the phrase site:.gov to limit to a specific domain type.

You can also use Wikipedia and other online directories to find museums on your topic. Example, Wikipedia AND bicycle museums brings up numerous results.

Example. Wikipedia search for museums
Provides interesting starting points

You can also use the library catalog to find directories of museums.

Library Catalog displaying Museum directories
Examples include:
*Directory of museums, galleries and buildings of historic interest in the United Kingdom
*Directory of historic house museums in the United States
*Directory of Virginia museums

Same Especially Famous Museums

The Smithsonian Institution
“The Smithsonian” is comprised of 19 different museums, galleries, and the National Zoo, and each museum has exhibitions online. You've already gotten a sense of just how much potential this institution has when it comes to objects.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The British Museum
This is another museum with enormous collections from around the world that go back thousands of years. You can see current exhibitions at https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on.aspx (some include related materials).
Victoria & Albert Museum
The V&C Museum is an “art and design” museum, with the largest collection of the applied and decorative arts—i.e., beautiful stuff that people use—in the world. Click the “What’s On” tab at the top of the page to get a sense of the museum’s exhibitions and programs.