Museums are, of course, wonderful institutions. But they also have a disadvantage: you are often not allowed to touch anything. This rule becomes stricter the older the exhibited object is. It is therefore not possible to browse through an antique book, for example. Unless you can find digital versions, and there are great apps for that!
Let’s start with those antique books. We assume that books are there to read, look at, feel, browse through. You just don’t do that with a handwritten copy that’s a few hundred years old. If that were allowed for every museum visitor, we wouldn’t have any antique book left by now.
Fortunately, we live in the 21st century, in which large parts of these types of books have been digitized. And with that you can browse through something special. Unfortunately, by no means all museums in the world make their collections available online in this way. But more and more yes. That in turn produces beautiful mobile apps, with which you can browse masterpieces on, for example, your iPad – the somewhat cramped phone screen provides a less beautiful experience.
FamousBooks
The Famous Books app of the German Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (iOS, android) has been standing out for years. Once installed, the app provides access to a range of very special books, many of which are literally a pain in the ass. Handwritten and (often) richly illustrated. The value of such epistles is inestimable.
The app offers advantages over the original. This way you can zoom in without a magnifying glass, the exposure of the pages is perfect and you never have to worry about making a tear or pouring a cup of coffee over the original. In archives there is always a lot of hassle with gloves (although that seems to be not good at all), no cup of tea allowed and nervous people around you who keep an eye on you and try to avert potential disasters.
It is useful to take a dip in the settings before you start reading. To do this, tap the dashed button at the top left, followed by a tap Settings. Default state Enable caching enabled. If you have a fast broadband connection at home and not a lot of storage space on your iPhone/iPad, it is useful to turn this switch off.
Also the option empty cache comes in handy in this context: you can quickly free up a lot of storage space if necessary. The options under Image Quality only apply to use in combination with a mobile data connection: if you don’t want to use a lot of data on the road, choose this Car or if necessary low. You will also find in the dash menu under Video another promotional film from the aforementioned Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
Browse!
Time to start reading. In the main screen of the app you will find books divided into various categories. At the bottom right (scroll down) there is the tile All books, for when you just want to browse the collection uninhibitedly.
When reading, it’s best to keep your iPad oriented vertically (portrait). Swiping takes you to the next or previous page, depending on the swipe direction.
Zooming in on details is a matter of spreading with two fingers, pinching to zoom out again. Want to know more about the opened book? Then tap at the top right Info.
A number of special apps from the same app maker can be found in the app store (all free by the way!), such as bavarikon 3D. Here you will find a variety of 3D objects, all of which can be rotated and zoomed by hand. Archaeological finds, technical devices, modern(er) inventions that are considered to be iconic, and so on.
For lovers of German literature there is German Classic, enough for hours of reading and viewing pleasure. Both of these apps mentioned are only available for iOS / iPadOS at the time of writing.
Art Authority
Looking for a more artsy museum experience? Be sure to check the app Art Authority once. This is only available for iOS and iPadOS (unfortunately still in two separate versions, but of course the larger screen of the iPad offers great advantages).
In the main window of the app, you can choose from several important time periods in art. You will then be shown the appropriate paintings for each time (movement). In high resolution, so zoom in if you feel like it! Tap on a painting and it will open larger.
Via the small sliding panel you can switch between grid view and ‘preview’ mode. Double-tap a painting to enlarge it and use spread and pinch gestures to zoom in and out.
Have you arrived in the painting view, you can use Settings include transition effects. Tap the globe in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen and then enable the option Ken Burns On in, which results in a special and dynamic slide show after pressing the play button, which is also present in the bottom button bar.
This automatically shows all masterpieces in a chosen category and is therefore also very suitable as an attention grabber during an artistic event. Or simply, to show your TV – if connected to the iPad or Apple TV – something more interesting than a black surface.
Virtual Louvre
A well-known museum is the French Louvre. Also known for the long, endless lines of shuffling and photographing tourists unfortunately. Not done in Covid times, but if that will ever be over again: then put it away.
If you prefer to experience the art exhibited there in an optimal display at home without pushing and pulling fellow visitors, then there is the app Louvre HD for the iPad. Divided over time periods you get access to all paintings.
Nice advantage: at the first start you are offered the option to download all images at once. If you do that, the whole thing also works offline. You do have to give up almost 600MB of storage space on your device. If you have one, it will all work smoothly and quickly after downloading.
A nice detail of this app is that – after you have opened a painting – you can receive it in a very high resolution via the button at the bottom left of the screen at no extra cost. Choose the option Get HD, wait a moment and the downloaded photo will be added to you Film role. Printing (or having it done) is then an option, which is always nice!
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