Metropolitan Museum of Art to stay open 7 days a week

Patrons will have another day to browse the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of nearly 2 million works.

The New York museum announced on Thursday that it will be open to the public seven days a week -- nearly 60 hours in total -- starting July 1. (The Met has been closed Mondays since 1971.)

The new schedule also applies to the Cloisters museum and gardens, the Met’s nearby museum of medieval art and architecture.

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Last year, a record 6.28 million people visited the Met, and the schedule shift was made so the institution would be “accessible whenever visitors have the urge to experience this great museum,” museum director Thomas Campbell said in a statement.

The museums of the Smithsonian Institution are open daily in the United States, and across the pond, London institutions, including the British Museum, the National Museum and the Tate galleries, are open every day.

Museums in Los Angeles, however, haven’t gone the way of expanded hours. Last year, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which had long been closed on Wednesdays, shaved eight hours from its schedule, though it remains open six days a week. The decision marked LACMA’s first schedule reduction since 1997, despite improved attendance and operating budget for 2012.

The Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu are closed Mondays and Tuesdays, respectively. The Hammer Museum is closed Mondays. The downtown Museum of Contemporary Art for years has maintained a five-day-a-week schedule, (closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays), but there have been rumblings -- and recommendations -- for a change.

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