Dear colleagues, I am writing to learn what the museum and collections community is using for a variety of services I outline below. I am looking to improve these services within our Gallery in a centralized fashion to minimize support efforts and to maximize the ability to reuse the data. Most of the services I describe are for internal operations.
* Scheduling How does your institution track project milestones, events, room reservations, exhibition planning (e.g. out to three years). This is an internal communication device, compared to Calendaring, which is meant for the public. * Calendaring I differentiate from Scheduling by recognizing Calendaring is for publishing events, activities, lectures, &tc. to the outside community (whether through Internet, website, RSS, kiosks, email, &tc.) (Note: one or more of the other services could feed this.) * Project Management Software to develop scope, track milestones, manage dependencies across multiple projects and work with resources to ensure sufficient effort on task. In general I am thinking of simple PM software to help with basics. * Ticketing/Helpdesk In the IT world a ticket would generate a request for assistance; further this would also allow a photography request through a customized form, initiate the procedure for request of an art object. * Inventory What are you using to track items - such as computers and audio video equipment, specialized exhibition equipment (audio-video), and - not just IT related items - also framing and packing supplies throughout your institution. I am interested in an umbrella solution; where a unified login would be possible, data interchange between the services and a user would have access to a personal dashboard (different for a photographer, an exhibition installer or an IT person.) I am deeply interested in what people are using for each service listed, and especially if anyone has more than one service covered by a single company/application. Further, if you are interested in the same problem, again let me know as we could seek various methods to brainstorm, project and development sharing and exploration. Please reply to me, and I will summarize for the list. Best, Thomas Thomas R. Raich Information Technology Group Yale University Art Gallery o: 203.432.6589 f: 203.432.9260 thomas.raich at yale.edu<mailto:thomas.raich at yale.edu> http://artgallery.yale.edu http://eCatalogue.art.yale.edu
