We're been tracking materials like this for several years now in the Science Museum of Minnesota's exhibit design/production group. We use a custom built database to track all exhibit components and each of their constituent parts (graphics, objects, media assets, media hardware). This database has evolved over the years from a series of custom Filemaker templates to a standardized online web tool. The current web tool was built in PHP and MySQL (Drupal), but we are currently working on a new system built in JS/Node/Mongo (Meteor).
When we first built these systems we looked for off the shelf software that would meet our needs. And each time we look at improving the system, we ask ourselves whether we should be spending internal resources to build and maintain this custom piece of software. However, we've never been able to find any tool that meets our custom needs. While we develop this system in the open on GitHub and are happy to share the code ( https://github.com/scimusmn/agora), I suspect that our system would have limited use even for another museum in the same exhibit business. A tool like this is just so linked to your internal business process, which will differ across institutions. That being said, I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who feels like a collaboration on a tool like this might be fruitful. Standardizing processes across groups is one of the biggest challenges and pay-offs in building a tool like this. Each group has to get together and define the precarious balance between tracking too much information and making a tool that people will actually use. It's useless to have the verbose system that tracks every detail, if no one updates the database when you move a monitor from one floor to another, or resize the graphic to fit a change in the furniture. We also found that spending time on visual design and performance was especially important. It probably is obvious, but was saw better engagement and use when we spent time to make the system more attractive looking and shaved a second off the page load time. If you're limiting your inventory needs to computer hardware assets you might be able to find some useful tools in the IT sector. Unfortunately, I've found these tools a bit restricted to network discovery which doesn't help much for non-networked hardware like old projectors, cameras, monitors, etc.: - https://www.spiceworks.com/ - http://www.solarwinds.com/ - http://www.open-source-guide.com/en/Solutions/Infrastructure/It-asset-and-inventory-management - http://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/ I'm super curious to hear how other institutions (large and small) are tracking assets like these. Best, bk ---------------------------------------------------- bryan kennedy director, exhibit media science museum of minnesota bkenn...@smm.org 651.221.2522 ---------------------------------------------------- On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Patrick Davis <pda...@fieldmuseum.org> wrote: > We are starting to look at asset management needs to keep track of all of > our AV inventory throughout the building as it has gotten out of hand. I > was wondering what other institutions, specifically large institutions, > like ours, are doing. > > As a educated guess off the top of my head we are in the 1000-1500 items > range, when you get down to the level of each speaker, monitor, projector, > computer, media player, ect.... > ------- > Patrick Davis | Exhibitions AV Specialist | The Field Museum > 1400 S Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605 > 312-665-7968 > > <https://www.fieldmuseum.org/email-signature> > > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l@mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > The MCN-L archives can be found at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/mcn-l@mcn.edu/ > >
_______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l@mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://www.mail-archive.com/mcn-l@mcn.edu/
