#MuseumWeek hits the UK

Starting today, more than 350 museums, galleries and cultural institutions from across the UK will come together on Twitter for the first ever #MuseumWeek. Check out this page to see if your favourite museum is taking part!

The week long celebration runs from 24th to 30th March and will bring museums to life for people across the UK and beyond.

Connect with artwork, history, science and literature in new and interactive ways over #MuseumWeek

Organisations taking part in the UK range from leading cultural organisations to lesser-known, smaller or more specialist collections. Every day each museum will tweet with the relevant day’s hashtag, and users from all over the UK can get involved too:

• #DayInTheLife - Monday 24 March: An insider’s perspective of a typical day at the museum.
• #MuseumMastermind - Tuesday 25 March: Museums will ask questions, propose riddles and create quizzes to test user’s knowledge.
• #MuseumMemories - Wednesday 26 March: Take a trip down memory lane and share your story, from favourite museums to memorable visits.
• #BehindTheArt - Thursday 27 March: An alternative insight into the structure, architecture and history of museums. Focusing on those hidden gems and anecdotes that aren’t immediately obvious.
• #AskTheCurator - Friday 28 March: A unique opportunity for culture lovers to connect directly with the experts, and get their questions answered.
• #MuseumSelfies - Saturday 29 March: Create your own museum portrait!
• #GetCreative - Sunday 30 March: Tweet new titles for historic artwork, summarise collections in 140 characters or provide a tour of a collection in a Vine video.

Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries Ed Vaizey (@edvaizey) said: “Our museums are fascinating places of knowledge and discovery and the first ever #MuseumWeek will allow millions of followers to get a unique glimpse behind the scenes.

“It’s fantastic that so many of our museums including the Science Museum, Tate, and the British Museum are taking part, highlighting to a global audience why they’re among the most popular and exciting attractions in the UK.”

Hundreds of activities will take place across the UK — here’s a taster:

• Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (@ShakespeareBT) is inviting people to test their knowledge of Shakespeare with a ‘Name That Play’ #MuseumMastermind from illustrations in their archive.
• On Monday, the Roald Dahl Museum (@roalddahlmuseum) will tweet author Roald Dahl’s (@roald_dahl) typical day with hashtag #DayInTheLife.
• The Louth museum (@LouthMuseum) in Lincolnshire will live-tweet during ‘Mrs Cuppleditch’s Hats’, a show of retro 1970s hats worn by the former Mayoress of the town.
• The National Portrait Gallery (@NPGLondon) will be asking their followers to submit ‘Tweet Portraits’ of themselves, friends and favourite sitters.
• English Heritage (@EnglishHeritage) have arranged for a ‘medieval monk’ from Mount Grace Priory in North Yorkshire to tweet his #DayInTheLife on Monday.
• The Horniman Museum (@HornimanMuseum) in South East London will be asking people to send in #MuseumSelfies with the museum’s mascot, a walrus, using hashtag #SelfiewiththeWalrus.
• The University of Reading Herbarium (@RNGherb) will be tweeting live from a botanising trip in Spain showcasing live plants and their matching herbarium specimens in the UK.
• Amgueddfa Forwrol Llŷn / Llŷn Maritime Museum (@AmgLlynMus) in North Wales has been closed for ten years, and will give followers a first look at the exciting plans for the new museum before the opening in July.
• Kidderminster’s Museum of Carpet (@MuseumofCarpet) will be encouraging people to share their memories of the carpet industry, inviting them to ‘spin us a yarn’ in 140 characters.

Philip Taylor, Head of Marketing at VisitBritain, said: “#MuseumWeek is a fantastic opportunity to showcase the hundreds of museums and galleries in the UK to our global audience, and enhance Britain’s reputation as a world-beating destination for arts and culture.

Twitter is a key part of the GREAT campaign’s social strategy, allowing us to engage thousands of followers, bringing them closer to British culture, sport, food, heritage and more.”

There have been more than 20,000 mentions of #MuseumWeek on Twitter since the project was announced on 11 March, and 18 countries will be represented in the week, including Spain, Italy, France and Ireland.