The Ashmolean Museum and Cookies

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is downloaded onto your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website. Many websites use cookies. They can do useful things, such as recognising that you are logged-in, or counting the number of people looking at a website. This can help in providing an effective website experience and relevant content.

The rules on cookies are covered by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR). PECR also covers the use of similar technologies for storing or accessing information. This website makes use of several cookies and one instance of local storage. Local storage is where scripts run by a website through your browser can temporarily store data on your device for use on the current website.

Managing your cookies

If you block cookies, this may affect the usability and functionality of websites and your experience of using our websites may suffer.

It is possible to prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting your browser settings. Be aware that doing this may affect the functionality of other websites that you visit. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office provides information on browser controls and where to find instructions for controlling cookies in different browsers.

Preference cookie

We use this cookie to remember your choice about optional cookies used by the website. When you decide whether or not to allow optional cookies, we store that decision in this cookie. The site then reads it in subsequent visits, so that you do not have to respond again until after it expires.

Cookie name	Expires	Purpose	Provider	Further information
CookieControl	13 weeks	Save cookie preferences	Site URL	First party cookie

Login cookies

If you log in to the website as a back end user (via SSO) we set a cookie so that we can remember this fact. This prevents you from having to log in again every time you visit a new page.

Cookie name	Expires	Purpose	Provider	Further information
SimpleSAMLAuthToken	Deleted when the browser closes	Token for the current user’s login session	Site URL
SimpleSAMLSessionID	Deleted when the browser closes	ID of the current user’s session	Site URL
SSESS[random identifier]	9 hours	Identifier used to distinguish authenticated user sessions	Site URL	Drupal session identifier
NO_CACHE	Deleted when the browser closes	Used for logged in users to bypass page caching	Site URL

Analytics cookies

We use Google Analytics to collect information about how people use the website. We do this to make sure it is meeting users’ needs and to understand how it could be improved. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors, where visitors have come from, how long they stay, the pages visited, and what they clicked on.

Personal information, such as your name or address, is not collected or stored, so this information cannot be used to identify who you are.

Cookie issuer	Cookie name	How long will the cookie last?	What does it do?
Google Analytics	_ga	1 year 1 month	Anonymously tracks individual visitor behaviour on the websites so that we can see how the sites are being used. We only use this information for monitoring and improving our websites and content for the benefit of our users (you). You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies completely (from all websites) by visiting https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. More about Google's Privacy Policy.
	_gat	1 minute
	_gid	1 day
	_ga_*	1 year
Microsoft Clarity	_clck		Anonymously tracks individual visitor behaviour on the websites so that we can see how the sites are being used. We only use this information for monitoring and improving our websites and content for the benefit of our users (you). More about Microsoft Clarity's cookies.
	_clsk
	CLID
	ANONCHK
	MR
	MUID
	SM

Cookies that help with our communications

Cookie issuer	Cookie name	How long will the cookie last?	What does it do?
Youtube	CONSENT	2 years	We embed videos from our official YouTube channel using YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode. This mode may set cookies on your computer when you arrive on a page containing a YouTube video. The cookies do not directly identify individual users and YouTube will not store information to personalise your experience unless you are logged in to a Google account. Read more at YouTube’s embedding videos information page. If you have a Google account and are logged in, YouTube may set cookies for analytics and advertising purposes and collect data linked to your Google account. For more information, see the Google Privacy Policy.
	YSC	Session
	VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	6 months
Facebook / Meta Pixel	_fbp	3 months	We use a Facebook pixel for the purpose of sharing information about your use of our website, such as what pages you visit. This helps us show you relevant advertising content when you are on Facebook. It is published by Facebook (Meta) and used to deliver targeted online advertising across Facebook and Instagram. Visitors can view their Facebook ads settings and update their preferences at any time. Consent for Facebook third-party cookies cannot be automatically removed by our tool, so please opt out manually.

Cookies on our Ticketing Webstore

The following cookies apply to tickets.ox.ac.uk/webstore (Gateway's Galaxy application)

Cookie issuer	Cookie name	How long will the cookie last?	What does it do?
tickets.ox.ac.uk	tickets.ox.ac.uk-affinity tickets.ox.ac.uk-affinityCORS	Session	The Galaxy webstore is hosted on Microsoft Azure Cloud. -affinity cookies are what the Microsoft Azure Application Gateway uses to maintain a user session and is not related to Gateway’s Galaxy applications but to the hosting provided via Microsoft Azure. Please see details here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-gateway/configuration-http-settings
tickets.ox.ac.uk	IsMemberPortalCategoryGroup	Session	This is an essential session functional cookie to ensure the webstore works for users – such as remembering the items in your basket. The cookie is stored temporarily and no user data is passed on to us.
tickets.ox.ac.uk	GTSASP.NET_SessionId	Session	This is an essential session functional cookie to ensure the webstore works for users – such as remembering the items in your basket. The cookie is stored temporarily and no user data is passed on to us.
tickets.ox.ac.uk	RestartURL	7 days	We use RestartURL to redirect the user back to a category grouping after their session expires rather than showing an error page.

Cookies on the Ashmolean Picture Library website

The following cookies apply to images.ashmolean.org. All are issued by images.ashmolean.org, and are set to expire after one month.

Cookie name	What does it do
autoshow	Autoshow similars
backgroundColor	Bbackground colour of search results
basic	Basic display of pricebook
basketSequence	Sequence of items on the basket
bgcolor	Background colour of search results
caption	Autozoom window of assets has caption enabled
choice	Lightbox/basket tab selected in overlay
colorDepth	Colour depth of user's browser
delta	Height of similar panels
expanded	Extended display of pricebook
gallery	ID of the selected gallery
grid_layout	Selected layout in search result
grid_thumb	Selected thumb size in search result
lang	Name of the selected language
lang2	Name of the selected language
lightboxSequence	Sequence of items on the lightbox
maximized	Similars are maximized or not
minimizeOverlayInManager	Minimize the lightbox/basket overlay in lightbox manager
PLUS_LDF_Display	Display of pricebook
pullout	Pullover menu on the search results page
screenResolution	Screen resolution of user's browser
simPan	Similars preview panel enabled
sortMode	Sort order of search results
username	Username of the user
zoom	Autozoom of assets in the search result

Disabling cookies

As well as using the Cookies button to update your preferences, it is also possible to prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting your browser settings. Be aware that doing this may affect the functionality of other websites that you visit. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office provides information on browser controls and where to find instructions for controlling cookies in different browsers. Please see the section on browser cookie settings at the end of the Cookies page on the ICO website.

Google Analytics also provides a tool you can add to your browser to opt-out of Google Analytics cookies on all websites you visit.

How we use local storage

This website makes use of the SaaS tool New Relic to monitor performance. We measure application and server performance to help us optimise the delivery of the site so that we can identify and address problems such as slow loading of pages.

It can be useful to understand patterns of performance, for example how a site performs for a given user as they visit pages on the same site in one session. New Relic creates an identifier – a random string of numbers and letters - to track a user session by temporarily storing the identifier in local storage on your device. This lasts for a maximum of 4 hours or sooner if you end your browser session or become inactive on the site.

Monitoring with New Relic is essential for us to understand any performance issues with this website and assists us to ensure that the site remains usable.