All,
On the collections management front there is also the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded CollectionSpace - http://www.collectionspace.org/
Paul
--------------------------------
Paul Vetch
Head of Research Development and Delivery
Senior Lecturer; King's Business Innovation Fellow
Department of Digital Humanities
King's College London
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mr Gerhard Bissels
Sent: 09 February 2012 14:56
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What really are the primary roles of ICT in Museums
Dear Wendy, dear Michael, dear Nick,
thanks for your replies!
Nick, I'd first like to defend my preference of Open Source Software. At least in the library sector, over recent years, some of the major vendors of proprietary software have been bought up by competitors, or by private equity capital - often leading to the sudden withdrawal of support and development for popular packages. The lack of investment in development has frustrated both institutions and vendors' staff - so much so that the core European reps of one library system vendor all resigned a few years ago, and set up a new business - supporting Open Source alternatives now... When I had the Koha OSS LMS installed in my then NHS library, I was impressed how slick the package was - and how affordable it was to have additional modules coded to meet that library's needs.
Wendy, I agree with you that standards are of much greater importance than the actual systems. Open Source applications tend to be totally standards-compliant - while many proprietary packages are not, or only by means of 'conversion' modules.
Michael, you asked for a list of relevant OSS packages. In a museum context I'd look at these:
Omeka (www.omeka.net) is a system for managing a collection of digital images, based on the Dublin Core standard. It was developed by George Mason University, released a year ago, and is currently in use at 1,500 organisations.
Collective Access (www.collectiveaccess.org) looks like a viable alternative to me.
For archival collections, Archon (www.archon.org) is popular; written by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
For the Library Management System, Koha (www.koha-community.org) is well established worldwide - and has been around since 1999!
For handling e-journal subscriptions and as a link resolver, the combination of CUFTS and GODOT (researcher.sfu.ca) from the Public Knowledge Project at Simon Fraser University would be adequate.
For an e-repository, there is, to my knowledge, only Open Source Software around - DSpace (www.dspace.org) has numerous installations in the UK, too.
For a search tool on top of all these, VuFind (vufind.org) from Villanova University is popular (e.g. LSE, Royal Holloway), but OpenBib (www.openbib.org) from Cologne University is considered the technically most advanced.
For publishing an e-journal, the Open Journals System (OJS) from the Public Knowledge Project at Simon Fraser University (pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs) has all the features you might ever need, yet is very straightforward to use.
For a Virtual Learning Environment, Moodle (moodle.org) is the popular OSS alternative - with over 70,000 installations and 60 million users!
For authentication, Shibboleth (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/shibboleth, http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/), an OSS tool, is the successor to Athens and standard across HE in the UK.
On the libraries' side, SCONUL has some useful resources on its HELIBTECH Wiki (helibtech.com/Open+Source). I'm not aware of an equivalent in the world of museums and archives, though.
Finally, I ought to point out my commercial interest in OSS - I'm a member of Library Co-op, a group of library, archive and museum professionals who specialise in Open Source Software.
Best wishes
Gerhard
On 9 Feb 2012, at 10:14, Michael Guthrie wrote:
> Hi Gerhard,
>
> An interesting post.
> What are the various open source software solutions for the object and
> library catalogues. Indeed for all that you mention, a list of
> available software would be great.
> Best,
> Michael
>
> On 9 February 2012 09:15, Mr Gerhard Bissels
> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> when I gave a paper on Open Source Software to MLAG last September,
>> the librarians and archivists told me there were three core systems
>> which museums needed: object catalogue, library catalogue, archive
>> catalogue. A Discovery Tool could be put on top to allow easy
>> cross-searching of resources. Horizontally, an Electronic Resource
>> Management System for access to e-journals and databases could be
>> added; and also channels for publishing information - an
>> e-repository, e-journal publishing software for a museum's newsletter
>> and/or scholarly journal(s), even a Virtual Learning Environment to
>> support any educational activities. Access to the lot would be
>> managed through an authentication tool. As far as I can see this set-up would take care of all collection-related work, curatorial and educational.
>> Or have I forgotten anything?
>>
>> There are decent Open-Source applications available to put all this
>> together, and tie it in with any other systems that may be required:
>> no license fees, low cost. And, ideally, the whole set-up could be
>> shared between institutions in a consortia set-up - which would not
>> only reduce cost, but would also facilitate other shared activities,
>> from joint subscriptions to interlending. MLAG has shown a keen
>> interest. Does this look reasonable so far? The next step would then
>> be the creation of a body that would run this bundle of services on
>> behalf of participating institutions...
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Gerhard
>>
>>
>> On 9 Feb 2012, at 08:31, John Williams (NMC) wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for an interesting reply Kate !
>>>
>>> Your comment about the shape and form of data is definitely important.
>>>
>>> We, like many others I guess, have seen an explosion in the amount
>>> of
>> data that we need to store. Much of that is multimedia and most of
>> that is currently images. Now we're seeing a demand for 3D images and
>> high definition video. Add that to the existing information and it's
>> no great surprise that we concluded we need to plan some form of
>> information management system.
>>>
>>> Our data is spread across many different platforms. Collection data
>>> in
>> the Collections Management System, Email in the Exchange information
>> store and Office documents across a variety of personal, shared and
>> project drives few of which are properly indexed,
>>>
>>> Managing that information is definitely becoming one of the major
>> strategic strands for the next few years.
>>>
>>> I'm also interested to explore how ICT can best collaborate in the
>> development of innovative interpretation. Many's the MCG meeting
>> where I've sat listening to other delegates bemoan the lack of
>> support that they get from their ICT departments. Much of that is
>> probably ICT's preoccupation with security but there still seems to
>> be a disconnection between what the users want and what ICT can - or is allowed - to provide.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
>>> Of
>> Kate Byrne
>>> Sent: 08 February 2012 12:07
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: What' are really the primary roles of ICT in Museums
>>>
>>> Interesting question John.
>>>
>>> Actually I don't think the core roles have changed since the first
>>> bits
>> became bytes:
>>>
>>> 1. ICT collaborates with others (colleagues from other disciplines,
>> volunteers, whoever) to produce systems to help carry out the
>> organisation's mission. Emphasis on collaboration and mission rather
>> than on what the technologies of the day happen to be.
>>>
>>> 2. ICT keeps an eye on new technology/research that could be
>>> exploited
>> for the organisation's gain in the future. Definitely not exclusive
>> to the ICT team, but they may have a usefully different perspective.
>> (For me, more natural language processing and semantic web stuff are
>> the future.)
>>>
>>> 3. The only one that is primarily ICT's responsibility: they keep in
>> mind through all developments the shape and form of the data, in
>> whatever medium, to ensure it is easy to access, manipulate,
>> recombine etc, and safely preserved. Curiously, this is the one ICT
>> sometimes seems to lose sight of.
>>>
>>> I'm out of touch as I'm no longer an ICT manager in cultural
>>> heritage
>> but I doubt these things have changed. I hope not anyway.
>>>
>>> All best,
>>>
>>> Kate
>>>
>>> ****************************
>>>
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>>
>>
>> Gerhard Bissels
>> Consulting Librarian
>> Tel. +44 (0)20 3432 0614
>> [log in to unmask]
>> library.coop
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Library Co-op LLP
>> Company registered in England and Wales no. OC366378
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Get Skype and call me for free.
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
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Gerhard Bissels
Consulting Librarian
Tel. +44 (0)20 3432 0614
[log in to unmask]
library.coop
Library Co-op LLP
Company registered in England and Wales no. OC366378
Get Skype and call me for free.
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