A social media celebration of what museums have to offer is back next week, and the team at the Royston Museum are getting in on the act.

Museum Selfie Day – which will be held for the third time tomorrow, January 20 – is one of a string of global projects which aim to harness modern technology to make people more aware of their past, and where they can find out more.

The King Street heritage base is joining forces with museums all over the world for the selfie day event, during which curating staff as well as visitors are invited to post a selfie shot on social media, showing them in front of or inside the museum, or even with an exhibition.

The popular idea was the brainwave of museum blogger Mar Dixon, who has been responsible for a number of innovative ideas aimed at blowing the dust off the unfair image of museums both large and small being dry and serious places.

She said: “The aim is to celebrate the fun side of culture and museums through a specific trend every month, encouraging visits to museums and art collections through social media.”

Royston Museum curator Jenny Oxley, who will also be supporting the project, said: “The aim of is to raise the profile of museums of all sizes on Twitter.

“Increasingly museums are using Facebook, Twitter and other social media to raise their profiles and spread the word about what they do.

“We are no different, it helps us to reach new audiences who might not naturally think that museums are for them, and also enables us to connect with other museums.”

Peter Greener, curator of the Ashwell Village Museum, said that Duke of Edinburgh Award students working at the museum intend to support the scheme.

North Herts District Council, which is still working on the North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin, also intends to mark the occasion.

Councillor Tony Hunter, the district council’s executive member for community engagement, said: “Museum staff will be posting selfies showing themselves in the new museum, sorting out the objects to go on display in the new showcases and archives to go in the new local studies room.”