Google has announced to the world about their joined partnership with the British Museum to provide their virtual tour to the world. This latest project could be the biggest one the Google Cultural Institute has undertaken since 2011. This digital project will allow people to view online about 5,000 objects of the museum in detail.

The project involves putting all the museum collections online and allowing visitors to have virtual tours using Google's Street View technology. The said results according to Neil MacGregor, British Museum's soon to depart director, has been a very important day in the history of the British Museum because it made the museum's 18th century dream a reality. This dream of the museum is to be able to be a collection of the world, for the world.

He further explains that the dream or fantasy of the museum, which was conceived about 25 years ago because of the partnership, has became an Internet possibility and a practical reality, thanks to the partnership with Google Cultural Institute. Now everyone on the planet regardless of location, whether they are in Mozambique or Brazil, India or China, wherever they are, they will now be able to visit the British Museum without difficulties. They will be able to use a museum collection as if it were their own and explore it in their own way.

MacGregor says that he hopes this project will also encourage more people to come and visit the museum personally. It will allow visitors to come better informed and that they will come not only to see the museum's collection but to also look at it.

For now, according to the British Museum's digital head Chris Michaels, the museum has already a strong Internet presence and the museum's 3m objects are already available for online viewing. So far, the collections have mostly academic viewers and it does not still have the reach of the new partnership.

And so far, there are 4,859 objects that are available to be viewed in detail online. These objects include the fourth century Admonitions scroll, one of British Museum's most important Chinese scrolls. The scroll is so fragile that it is only made available to view for a few months only every year. Now because of the efforts in photographing it and making it available online, visitors can now take a look at it in detail using the zoom options and without ever worrying about destroying one important fragile document.

Michaels said that the museum's Indoor Street View footage has taken them 15 months to film because they have to do it out of the normal visiting hours. He adds that it has been a huge organizational process for a big place like the museum. It is the largest space to be ever been captured on Indoor Street View plus the various add-ons like specially curated virtual exhibits and a Museum of the World microsite linking each object on a timeline makes this project striking.

On the other hand, the Director of Google Cultural Institute Amit Sood said that it has been one of their aims to bridge the gap between the high and popular culture. If it gets Internet cat videos' fans interested in the British Museum's cat sculptures then it means that they will have to manage to get their jobs done.

British Museum is the latest to join around 800 cultural institutions that are also already part of Google's project. The project is also paid for by the non-profit branch of Google, the Google Cultural Institute.