The Gallery at Penn College has launched a new multimedia guide that features audio, photos and text, allowing visitors to explore its content in a dynamic and meaningful way, a press release said.

The free digital guide is available on Bloomberg Connects, an app and online platform designed to make art and culture more accessible by providing expert-curated guides to galleries, museums, gardens and cultural institutions.

Although gallery exhibits are included, the main focus of Penn College’s digital guide is the Art on Campus collection, which dates back to 1968, when the first artwork was donated to the former Williamsport Area Community College. The collection was enriched in the 1980s when the Williamsport Recreation Association donated a series of paintings that won the Ways Garden Art Competition between 1966 and 1978. A now defunct Art on Campus committee was established in 1999 with dedicated funding for the acquisition and preservation of artwork, which resulted in substantial growth. According to Penny G. Lutz, gallery director, 92% of the current collection has been added since 1999.

“The Penn College Art on Campus collection is a hidden gem in northcentral Pennsylvania,” she said. “Being included on this platform will elevate the gallery’s visibility and invite a broader audience to engage with the artwork.”

The Bloomberg Connects app is free for institutions to join, but the commitment is substantial, Lutz said. The project included training in a content management system, weekly group meetings with a cohort dedicated to academic museums and galleries, weekly one-on-one meetings with a content strategy team, extensive writing and editing, and creating multimedia content. The Gallery’s summer intern, Lycoming College art history and studio art double major Alexis Rockwell, assisted with compiling information for the CMS, writing alternative text and descriptions and creating audio.

The Thomas T. Taber Museum is the only other institution in the region on the app, and Penn College students assisted in launching the historical content two years ago. Twenty-four students in a Technical & Personal Communication (ENL 201) class taught by Andrea M. Campbell, assistant professor of English composition and technical communication, performed research, asset gathering and inventory management to transform the museum’s artifacts into the online format.

Now that the Penn College Bloomberg Connects app is live, more works from the permanent collection will be added, current exhibits will be updated and more audio guides will be created, Lutz said.

“The Bloomberg Connects app offers incredible benefits, from previewing a museum or gallery’s collection before you visit to virtually exploring exhibitions across the country or around the world. You can even search by region to discover arts and cultural institutions nearby,” she said. “The app is intuitive, accessible and user-friendly.”

The app, which is an initiative of Bloomberg Philanthropies, is available for download from Google Play or the App Store.