For a comprehensive (maybe overwhelmingly) exploration of museum news, peruse the New York Times’ freshly published 2011 installment of the annual Museums Section. Featuring spotlights on promising figures at major U.S. institutions including SFMOMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the incorporation of social media, future exhibitions, and plenty more, the Times thoroughly reports on museums of nearly every conceivable nature.

Click here to navigate the section or here for a condensed, art-centric version.

Today, Google launched Art Project, a collaboration between the internet giant and 17 international art museums including the Metropolitan, MoMA, the Tate Britain, the Frick Collection, and the Museo Reina Sofia.

The website features 385 gallery rooms with over 1,000 high-resolution–some even rendered with a “gigapixel” digitizing process–reproductions of works by over 486 artists. Participating museums can be viewed in two ways: as a walking trip through galleries evocative of Google Street View, or as a piece-by-piece tour viewable in an image window.

Exhibiting works from Botticelli to Chris Ofili, Google Art Project hopes to recruit additional institutions, including the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay.

To visit the site, head to GoogleArtProject.com.

On Friday afternoon a woman taking an adult education class at the Metropolitan Museum of Art accidentally fell into “The Actor,”  a rare Rose Period Picasso,  causing a large tear. Officials at the museum said that since the damage did not occur “in the focal point of the composition,” they expected that the repair would be “unobtrusive,” according to a statement released on Sunday.

Since 1952 “The Actor,”  has hung prominently at the Met, along with other examples of early paintings by this Spanish master. But on Monday, according to the NY Times,  it could be found in a new  home -  the Met’s conservation laboratory.  Experts there are trying to determine the best course of action for the 105-year-old painting’s brand-new feature: an irregular, six-inch tear running vertically along the lower right-hand corner.

More details on the repair process at the NY Times online. No word on the woman who fell into the painting.