In-Kind Support

The Cleveland Museum of Art’s corporate partner BlueBridge Networks—a Cleveland-based provider of digital security, cloud computing, and IT services—has long provided in-kind support of the museum’s storage and security digital infrastructure, enabling the CMA to deliver transformative art experiences such as ArtLens and open access. Kevin Goodman, managing director at BlueBridge, grew up admiring the city’s many arts institutions. Even now, Kevin distinctly remembers school field trips to the museum, which sparked a lifelong appreciation for the arts. When he learned about the museum’s launch of Gallery One in 2012, the first iteration of the new ArtLens Reimagined gallery, he and his wife, Tracy, quickly saw an opportunity to give back to an institution that meant so much to him and to the community BlueBridge serves. 

Since then, BlueBridge’s in-kind support has powered the digital capabilities of each subsequent iteration of ArtLens, including the most recent renovation, which opened in July. Their infrastructure serves as the secure repository for the museum’s world-renowned collection, including the high-resolution image archive that underpins digital experiences across the museum, such as the new ArtLens gallery, the Collection Wall, and Collection Online, as well as open access, which allows anyone to freely download high-resolution images of public domain artworks and search more than 36 fields of scholarly metadata. For Kevin, ensuring the long-term preservation, security, and accessibility of the museum’s collection is essential to advancing its mission of making art accessible to everyone. This includes his sons, who have used the high-quality images, conservation history, provenance, and other data points in Collection Online for their own scholarly work. 

As Kevin can attest, each year more people visit the CMA’s online collection to study and learn about works of art across time periods and cultures. ArtLens continues to serve as a distinct and engaging access point for audiences to experience and explore art in new, meaningful ways. The CMA was established “for the benefit of all the people forever.” BlueBridge’s support as a corporate partner enables the museum to advance this mission, helping to deepen and broaden the “all” at the center of its work. Through its philanthropy at the CMA and other Cleveland institutions, including the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Orchestra, BlueBridge hopes to echo the vision of the museum’s founders, ensuring broad public access to the arts.