The Brooklyn Museum Wants You to Put Its Staff in Your Pocket

For the last few years the Brooklyn Museum has been prototyping ways to reach visitors on a more personal level. Their final product is the ASK Brookly Museum app. It's a chat interface that lets museum-goers talk to staff about anything that strikes their fancy in the institution.

A team of art educators sit around a cluster of computers near the museum entrance, ready to answer questions from visitors as soon as they comes through the app.

But it's teaching the museum staff something as well: They're learning how visitors interact with the collection, and as a result, are providing more information in some places or making changes to displays in other locations.

It's one of 15 art-meets-tech projects funded by Bloomberg Connects, a part of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which aim to better connect visitors with cultural institutions.