Paul, James,
I think one of the keys here, and throughout this discussion, is
'design'. You decide what you want to do with your collections (and
museum/organisation website), design it in full and then, only then,
think about technology/delivery.
We constantly try and test extensively a good number of CMS solutions,
such as Drupal, Joomla, Typo3, ExpressionEngine, Wordpress, IBM
Websphere and more.
Most of them are really good products (with maybe the exception of
Websphere...), with different degrees of complexity. They all also
have their own unique philosophy, and a way of 'thinking' of the
interrelationships between content and presentation. They generally
struggle when needing to integrate with separate repositories - such
as collections - that, because of their wider scope needs, require a
separate software solution, like a Collection Management System.
The solution we have found - for now, as things evolve constantly -
lays in having two *completely* separate layers:
- Managing abstract content, including collections and other external
assets.
- presenting content, in context, using high-level frameworks, rather
than template systems.
It would seem obvious, but most CMS we have tested - and I'd like to
be pointed in a different direction if I'm mistaken - organise content
already having in mind a website structure. If you're happy with that
way of thinking you have a winner. But if you require a lot of
flexibility and multiple delivery channels, you may find that the
effort of customising a 'ready-made' solution is quite a demanding one.
Kind regards, Cristiano
On 21 Jul 2008, at 15:49, Paul Groves wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 5:41 PM, Bert Degenhart Drenth
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Hi James,
>>
>> Can you make clear what the CMS TLA means to you?
>>
>> a) Content Management System
>> b) Collection Management System
>> c) Customer Management System (this is probably not the one you mean,
>> since the abbreviation CRM is more common)
>>
>> All three are different and all three are relevant for museums
>
> Also, if you want to deliver your digitised collections online to the
> public, then your "backend" Collection Management System may well be
> used as your primary data source for this, but they aren't necessarily
> designed to actually *do* the online delivery, and even if they do
> have an online version, the "off-the-shelf" ones I've seen so far seem
> fairly limited and not easy or even impossible to customise further.
> Also, a typical general purpose web Content Management System (e.g.
> Joomla, Drupal etc.), does not seem to be very appropriate for this
> job either, where you may want to have lots of flexibility in the way
> users search for and browse your collections. The alternative of
> getting developers (whether in-house or out-sourced) to develop a
> bespoke system for delivering your online collections would in theory
> give you the most flexibility in terms of being able to deliver
> exactly what you want, especially if you want a site with lots of
> innovative features - but at what cost, both in terms of development
> time/money/risk and in maintaining the system over the long term?
> These are all issues we're struggling with at the moment and there
> doesn't seem to be a simple answer... Was actually thinking of running
> a poll to see what approaches different museums have used to deliver
> their collections online to the public (which is not necessarily the
> same as maintaining a more general museum website) and the pros/cons
> of each...
>
> NB: I would happily stand corrected if anyone can suggest a flexible,
> well-supported (either by its user/developer community or a
> corporation) system that can easily be expanded and that is well
> suited to deliver the complex, inter-related data involved in deliver
> museum collections online to the public....
>
> Paul
>
> --
> Paul Groves, Project Manager
> AMEAD Project, Dept. of Eastern Art
> Ashmolean Museum, Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2PH. UK
> T: +44 (0)1865 278289
> W: http://www.ashmolean.org/
>
> For disclaimer, see http://www.ashmolean.org/email/
--
Cristiano Bianchi
Keepthinking
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15 Maiden Lane
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