Museum of Natural History 'Goes To Town'

What does a museum do when it has to temporarily close its doors? The answer, for Oxford University's Museum of Natural History, was that if the public couldn’t come to the museum, the museum would go to the public.

That is exactly what the Parks Road attraction has done with its new Goes to Town project. The museum is closed this year for essential repairs to its 150-year-old glass roof – but that hasn't stopped staff coming up with a creative and playful way to ensure the public can still enjoy its myriad exhibits during the closure.

On Monday (1 July), 12 of the museum's specimens were installed at various locations around the city, where they will remain in residence for the next six months. Exhibits include a Utahraptor dinosaur, a king penguin, a snowy owl, edible insects and a part-subfossil model of the museum’s iconic dodo. The exhibition's mobile website – at goestotown.com – offers more detailed information about each specimen, including audio recordings made by museum staff and University scientists, as well as details of where the specimens can be found.

The exhibition also takes the form of an interactive treasure trail – available to everyone, the trail can be completed using mobile technology or as a paper version for those without smartphone or tablet devices. Each exhibit carries two ratings, one for danger and one for rarity. Anyone who can identify which specimen has the highest rating in each category may enter a competition via the Goes to Town website and be in with the chance of winning a prize when the museum re-opens in February 2014.

Scott Billings, communications co-ordinator at Oxford University's Museum of Natural History, said: 'We thought about what we were going to do while the museum was closed and we came up with this idea that if the city can't come to the museum then the museum will have to go to the city.

'The nice thing about this is that people will stumble upon the specimens. You may be deliberately trying to follow the trail, but you may just be walking down the street and see one of these strange creatures in a shop window.

'There are 12 to find as part of the main trail and there’s also a Toumaï figurehead for the exhibition.'

Goes to Town is combining mobile technology, real museum specimens and local partners. It takes the museum's approach to inspirational learning into the heart of Oxford city centre.

The roof repairs are being documented on the museum’s blog.

The adjoining Pitt Rivers Museum remains open.