More than 1 million objects from collections from museums, galleries, libraries and archives from across the UK are now accessible together online for the first time.

Culture Grid, a new initiative from the Collections Trust, is being funded by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and the European Commission, and supported by the Museums Galleries Scotland.

The scheme aims to draw together information from thousands of museum, archive and library websites and databases and feed it to mainstream media partners such as Google, Flickr, the BBC, and Wikipedia, which increases the information's profile and enables more people to access it.

It is part of Collections Trust's efforts to reach new audiences and generate potential financial gain through image buying services.

Phill Purdy, grid manager at the Collections Trust, said: "UK collections are a rich, often untapped resource.

"The Culture Grid provides a fast, simple and sustainable way of connecting people to these unparalleled resources, allowing more people to share, enjoy and learn from collections in new ways.

The Collections Trust is the UK's independent organisation for cultural collections.