In May 2016, Indiana University and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy -- one of the oldest and most renowned art museums in the world -- announced an unprecedented initiative to digitize in 3-D the museum's entire 1,250-piece collection of irreplaceable Greek and Roman sculpture. IU's communications team engaged in a strategic media relations program that resulted in major U.S. and European media coverage of the historic partnership between IU's acclaimed Virtual World Heritage Laboratory and the Uffizi. The program also achieved high visibility -- both nationally and internationally -- for IU's president, a recognized authority in the areas of global education and information technology, while advancing two of IU's most important strategic priorities: global engagement and the safeguarding of knowledge through digitization and preservation.
