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[Preamble]
I'm coming late to this discussion. I'm new to this list, too. I'm not competent to discuss anything other than a web site Content Management System. My competence comes from running a few web sites and discovering that no Open Source Web CMS has met my needs so far. I have no expertise in Collections Management Systems.
I've just worked under the request of the trustees of the Dartmouth Museum Association as a pro bono volunteer to put its site together at http://dartmouthmuseum.org - a site that is imperfect under the skin, and yet meets the small museum's needs. I can tell you that what I've achieved for a small museum's amateur webmaster would be untenable for a large museum.
And yet the other options were closed to me, primarily because of lack of anything other than a minimal and well guarded budget, for the DMA is a charity and must husband its resources carefully. I should tell you that I speak here as an individual volunteer. I can not speak for the DMA itself.
[/Preamble]
A museum web CMS must be both Open Source, and capable of deployment by an amateur webmaster on the meanest and smallest of hosted server packages. No specialist knowledge, nor specialist access to the server must be required. One must assume that the web server is a welded shut box that can only handle simple file uploads to create the site.
Interface with Collections Management Systems must be possible with ease. Limited selections of the Collections (up to and including 100%) must be easy to interface with the web system
Design templates for web pages must be easily available at no cost, easily edited and W3C compliant (don't do that check at http://dartmouthmuseum.org because I chose an imperfect(!) template)
Authors who are used to M$ Word or Open Office must be able to copy and paste text without falling foul of character encoding issues (smart quotes, ampersands, < and > signs, diacritics, ellipses, etc). We expect our authors to have skill in creating text, not in meeting the needs of the internet gods.
Embedded picture resizing must be optimised for web delivery, and not restrained by peculiar shapes. Do not get me started on peculiar shapes for images and CMS mis-designs that constrain webmasters to them :)
Security issues which allow hacker access to the server are simply unacceptable. No discussion.
It must be easy to add any adverts one wishes to publish, not just form Big G, but form any provider of advertising revenue
Widgets for things like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ Google Analytics and other similar items must be the work of moments to install. Faffing about with putting code into HTML pages is insanity and requires knowledge
Control over the 'rel="nofollow" attribute for links must be available on a link by link basis
Support, that bane of any Open Source project, must be available, and not using arcane services like Bugzilla or OTRS. And it must be delivered so that my mother can understand it (though she died in 2007).
I know I can get past 10. IT just seems rude, since I'm late to the party
Tim Trent - Consultant
Tel: +44 (0)7710 126618
personal blog: timtrent.blogspot.com/ - news, views, and opinions
personal website: Tim's Personal Website - more than anyone needs to know
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