Digital Puzzles from Cultural Heritage Collections
During the early days of the pandemic, one online activity that brought some levity to the uncertain days was the world of digital puzzles. You might remember them too: the website Jigsaw Explorer in particular became popular because it provides an easy way to create puzzles using your own images and play with other people in real time.
I did them alone and with coworkers, during long meetings, and sometimes even when I needed to be working on other things. They were a point of connection and a much-needed distraction, and remain a bright spot among my memories of the pandemic.
Cultural heritage organizations jumped onto the idea, and they quickly became one of my favorite examples of digital collections use. Many continue to post new puzzles in batches.
As an avid player, I’ve often imagined ideas for the future of digital puzzles:
- a more modern interface with similar features to Jigsaw Explorer
- a way to use the above with a touch screen that I could keep on a table or wall so I could always have a puzzle going with a friend (or so they could be available for library patrons or museum visitors to do together!)
- a central aggregator where cultural heritage organizations can share links to puzzles they’ve created
More organizations have shared digital puzzles than I can include in this post, but I’ve rounded up some favorites, especially those with nice/navigable overview pages. Happy puzzling!
Smithsonian Institute
(Possibly the folks who introduced me to Jigsaw Explorer!)
Ashmolean Museum
The museum uses Jigsaw Planet for their puzzles, which is different from all the others here. I love the thematic collections, like ‘Victorian Color’ and ‘Spring.’
I’d love to see even more organizations sharing puzzles created from their digital collections. Here’s an intro about it works from Jigsaw Explorer. (You’ll need URLs to JPG, PNG, WEPB, or GIF image files to begin.) I can’t wait to try them out!
