Hi Jim,
yes, there is that kind of pressure - it would seem everyone believes Open Source is 'better' and proprietary is 'bad' - although we have also to put in place all kinds of protection for images, which are often copyrighted.
There is confusion about the idea of "Open Source" as well: in our case our Qi CMS is de-facto open source (although commercial OS), based on open source technologies and open source database engines. It's thoroughly documented and if an institution decided they don't want to work with us any longer, they will keep it and can work on it if they wish. The issue in the view I expressed earlier is, provided that the CMS does its job (manage content and relationships) and it does it using a simple an intelligible data structure, why should you change the CMS? What you may want to change is the presentation layer - and that can be done by anyone: you do not need another CMS.
I would pass your question to Museums (and Galleries): why is Drupal better that a proprietary solution. I have friends and colleagues who use Drupal, yet they do depend on finding good developers - and when they leave, the pain of replacing is not irrelevant. Like any system, an OS one is only as good as the people who implemented it and customised it: it may not be that easy to simply switch agency.
Best,
Cristiano
On 16 Aug 2011, at 11:56, Jim Richardson wrote:
> Hi Cristiano
>
> I guess the problem is if the sector starts to demand Drupal solutions.
>
> It is possible to create better websites with a custom CMS, but will museums opt for Drupal because it becomes an industry standard? Because it's open source ethos fits with the sectors own? Because of the size of the development community which makes it easier to move to a different agency or to incorporate new developments?
>
> Personally I'd prefer to keep developing in our custom CMS, but I don't think that is what museums are going to want in six months time.
>
> Jim
>
> ---
>
>
> On 16 Aug 2011, at 11:41, Cristiano Bianchi | Keepthinking wrote:
>
>> Hi all and thanks for the really interesting discussion.
>>
>> I'm not convinced by the one-size-fits all approach either, yet there are some elements that have similarities, in most cases. What I find misleading comes from the classic notion of a CMS, which is thought as a tool for managing content as well as its presentation, often out of the box: that the case with Joomla (now largely out of the scene, as it really offers a outdated approach, where content and presentation are ways too mixed) and to some extend Drupal (where HTML code is inside controllers). Fine if you want a Joomla/Drupal looking website.
>>
>> In our approach, a CMS should allow flexible management of content and content relationships - and stop there: it will not offer a template system, nor themes, nor skins. Every museum (and gallery, although in my experience galleries have often different needs) is different and needs to be presented and engage in a different way to/with different audiences: we do spend a lot of time in creating ad-hoc 'user experiences'. Yet, from a purely content 'management' point of view, events are events (with dates, times, target audiences, categories, etc); exhibitions are exhibitions (again, with standard content requirements as well as custom ones); events often relate to exhibitions... and so on.
>>
>> A good CMS in my view is one that lets you define your content requirements with full flexibility, in every way and in every direction. One that lets you manage complexity at both 'object' level (events, exhibitions, news... artefacts, etc) as well as group level (highlights for exhibition, themes for events, collection must sees, museum trails, floor plans, etc).
>>
>> All of this, irrespective of presentation.
>>
>> Presentation is then on another layer, one which is build on top of content and relationships and one that is truly unique to each institution and changes for the same institution in time: smaller institutions with few events won't probably need a searchable calendar, while larger ones will; on some years, the focus of an institution will be exhibitions (marketing...), while the next year may be (lack of funding...) permanent displays. More and more people will use their phones and tablets to visit a museum (and gallery) website and will be probably be looking for different ways of browsing (the same) content, with different priorities. The content for any of these scenarios is the same, what you get out of it is different.
>>
>> All of this is managed at the presentation level, which in our experience is different from 'managing' content (and my argument here is that it should not be part of the same system). In this view, the scope and role of a CMS is to give you all the tools you need to create content and create relationships, manage users and workflows, upload and resize images and media files; which grows with you and adapt to your different needs, without redundancies and hundreds of functions and plug-ins you'll never need and were largely thought and developed to solve different problems in different contexts (and take hours to search, try and debug).
>>
>> Well, that's what we do anyway :-) - We did look at Drupal (which is the best out there) and didn't like it, because it lacks such level of flexibility and 'purity' of separation between content/presentation.
>>
>> Best,
>> Cristiano
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 16 Aug 2011, at 10:48, Peter Pavement wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Perry
>>>
>>> Having been engaged with the making and/or implementing of museum content management systems for nearly 10 years I'd have to agree with Danny - you can't really have a perfect, one-size-fits-all solution. Better to tailor around what you're trying to achieve.
>>>
>>> I wonder what responses you'd get if you asked a list of architects and museum professionals - "what would the perfect museum building look like?"
>>>
>>> best regards
>>>
>>> Peter Pavement
>>>
>>> Surface Impression Ltd
>>> http://www.surfaceimpression.com
>>>
>>> NEW ADDRESS: 11a Jew Street, Brighton, BN1 1UT
>>> 01273 683000
>>>
>>> On 16 Aug 2011, at 10:33, Birchall, Danny wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Perry
>>>>
>>>> I would be very happy to help list desirable features for the 'perfect museum CMS' but I would never ever ever want to use such a thing myself: it would be an over-specified mess. I'd much rather have a good general CMS that was open and extensible, with a balanced integration between robust core functions and custom-built museum-specific extensions.
>>>>
>>>> Danny
>>>>
>>>> Danny Birchall
>>>> Web Editor, Wellcome Collection
>>>> Wellcome Trust
>>>> Gibbs Building
>>>> 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK
>>>> Tele: +44 (0) 207 611 8894
>>>> email: [log in to unmask]
>>>> www.wellcomecollection.org
>>>> www.twitter.com/explorewellcome
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Perry Bonewell
>>>> Sent: 16 August 2011 9:13
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: [MCG] What would an open source museum CMS look like?
>>>>
>>>> I would be interested to hear what ideas people on the list have about the following:
>>>>
>>>> If you could build the perfect museum web CMS what would it look like? What features would it need to have straight out of the box to make it a viable option for your next web site?
>>>>
>>>> All the Best
>>>> Perry Bonewell
>>>>
>>>> ****************************************************************
>>>> website: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/
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>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Cristiano Bianchi
>> Keepthinking
>>
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>
> Jim Richardson
> Founder
>
> ----
>
> Our new website is now online:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.sumodesign.co.uk
>
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Cristiano Bianchi
Keepthinking
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London EC1M 5RS
t. +44 20 7490 5337
m. +44 7939 041169 (uk)
m. +39 329 533 4469 (it)
[log in to unmask]
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