The slippers are part of the twelve "Foundation Elements" in the 2015 toys-to-life video game LEGO Dimensions. Brooks, Jennifer (October 18, 2016). "What a world, what a world: Ruby slippers still missing from Minnesota's Judy Garland Museum". Star Tribune . Retrieved October 20, 2016.

Bierschbach, Briana (4 September 2018). "No place like home: Dorothy's ruby slippers recovered". www.mprnews.org. Contemporary Designers Re-Imagine Dorothy's Ruby Slippers For Charity". Access Hollywood. June 10, 2009 . Retrieved April 21, 2010.

After the research, the conservators spent more than 200 hours treating the shoes. This meant removing surface dirt and stabilizing loose threads. They did this sequin by sequin, under a microscope. For the sequins, they used a small paintbrush and a pipette attached to a hose and vacuum. For the glass beads on the bow, they used small cotton swabs and water. “We had to be careful,” Wallace says. “What we could do with one material, we couldn’t do with one right next to it.” They also stabilized broken or fraying threads with adhesive and silk thread. Over time, some of the more than 2,400 sequins per shoe had rotated or flipped, and they realigned them all. The Ruby Slippers have always been “pretty much the holy grail of all Hollywood memorabilia,” says Thomas, the author. But now, according to Thomas, they are entering “a forensic era,” in which people are examining them more closely than ever before, including the Smithsonian conservators and the FBI. “The Smithsonian has now had the opportunity to look at two pairs side by side,” Thomas says. “That’s the first time any two pairs of the shoes have been together in the same room since Kent Warner brought them home from the MGM lot in 1970.” The progressive band Electric Light Orchestra used a frame from the 1939 film on the cover of their fourth studio album Eldorado, released in 1974. The cover was laid out by Sharon Osbourne (then known as Sharon Arden) and the picture was printed in reverse: the shoes point left in the film. The team studied the FBI pair for a day and a half. The similarities were obvious. “I would say it was after a little over an hour, we were just looking and we see all the consistencies,” Wallace says. “Everything started to line up.” That included clear glass beads painted red on both shoes, a detail she believed was not widely known.

An estimated tens of millions of people have viewed the Ruby Slippers at the American History Museum since an undisclosed donor gave them to the institution in 1979, according to Lintelman. Prior to their recent conservation, the shoes had been away from the public for only short periods. “Any time that we take the Ruby Slippers off display we immediately hear about it from guests,” he says. “When people see them in person they’re so surprised to see that they’re small, but it brings home the fact that Judy Garland was 16 years old when making the film. . . . It’s a very recognizable and understandable object.” It is believed that at least six or seven pairs of the final design were made. According to producer Mervyn LeRoy, "We must have had five or ten pairs of those shoes". [10] The wardrobe woman who worked on the film claimed "six identical pairs" had been made. [9] Four pairs used in the movie have been accounted for. Rhys Thomas speculates that they were likely made by Joe Napoli of the Western Costume Company, [9] and not all at once, but as the need arose. According to Rhys Thomas in his Los Angeles Times article, "all the ruby slippers are between Size 5 and 6, varying between B and D widths." [9]Stills from The Wizard of Oz and a mural featuring bright red poppies created by the Washington, D.C. art and design firm No Kings Collective covers the walls. The Twigseeds band of furry and feathery friends have grown a following of both children and grown-ups alike. They have appeared in books, magazines, art prints, greeting cards, stationery, plush toys and bed linen. In "At The Auction of the Ruby Slippers", a short story in Salman Rushdie's 1994 anthology East, West, various members of a destitute world attend an auction to bid for the ruby slippers of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, in the hope their transformative powers will help them achieve personal and political ends.