[MCN-L] Computer systems for a new museum
You may find this five-part planning guide of some value: http://systemsplanning.com/mnc1.asp Stephen -- Stephen Toney Systems Planning toney at systemsplanning.com http://www.systemsplanning.com
[MCN-L] Computer systems for a new museum
Hi everyone, I am helping to start a new museum and am looking at computer software for several functions. I would like to pose a general question. Our IS staff will be small, and we are interested in having our data between systems integrated as much as possible. We will be a global musical instrument museum and will use a large amount of AV in our galleries, such as audio and visual files. If you had the luxury of not needing to convert a bunch of historical data, and not having legacy programs to deal with, what computer programs would you recommend for: Financial accounting Membership/fundraising Ticketing Collection Management Digital Asset Management And are there any systems you would definitely warn me away from? Thank you all for your input! Amanda Birnstengel Operations Manager MIM- The World's First Global Musical Instrument Museum 84 S. 10th Street Suite 450 Minneapolis, MN 55403 612-746-2070 main line 612-746-2072 direct dial amanda.birnstengel at themim.org www.themim.org
[MCN-L] Computer systems for a new museum
Hi Amanda: Congratulations! I am rather quite envious that you won't have a bunch of cleanup and nasty legacy data to deal with! How large do you think your museum will ultimately end up? Scale can be a determining factor in which software you choose. For instance - I love how well KE Software's EMu handles multimedia, images, and object information. With 30K objects, and a whole mess of artists and donors and other personal information to keep track of, it's a good solution for us. But for a place that only has 3000 objects, EMu's a bit overkill. (but if you do plan on having a large collection, I do highly recommend EMu) Will you be presenting your collections and programs on the web as well? Will you be sharing your data with other groups, so will need to export it into various formats? Oh, one thing I might mention about collections software, specifically in the steer away from category... A lot of museums recognize that theirs is a unique collection, so often fall into the trap of thinking they need unique software and design their own collections management software (CMS). Unfortunately, one of the major pitfalls that this causes is inoperability between systems if you're trying to share your data. Also, the maintaining and knowledge of such systems often relies on institutional memory (ensuring that 20 years from now, your poor registrar is going to be complaining about that historical data and wondering how this weird software came into being). Most good CMS developers can customise the software to your specifications, while maintaining the backbone of the database structure and its flexibility. And I can't tell you how grateful I am to have software support always available. In the long run, the license fees are well worth the preservation of my sanity (what's left of it anyway...), the program's flexibility, and it is cost-effective when staff time is taken into account. Ok, off of my soapbox now! Perian Sully Collection Database Records Administrator Judah L. Magnes Museum 2911 Russell St. Berkeley, CA 94705 510-549-6950 x 335 http://www.magnes.org Contributor, http://www.musematic.org -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Amanda Birnstengel Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 7:08 AM To: mcn-l at mcn.edu Subject: [MCN-L] Computer systems for a new museum Hi everyone, I am helping to start a new museum and am looking at computer software for several functions. I would like to pose a general question. Our IS staff will be small, and we are interested in having our data between systems integrated as much as possible. We will be a global musical instrument museum and will use a large amount of AV in our galleries, such as audio and visual files. If you had the luxury of not needing to convert a bunch of historical data, and not having legacy programs to deal with, what computer programs would you recommend for: Financial accounting Membership/fundraising Ticketing Collection Management Digital Asset Management And are there any systems you would definitely warn me away from? Thank you all for your input! Amanda Birnstengel Operations Manager MIM- The World's First Global Musical Instrument Museum 84 S. 10th Street Suite 450 Minneapolis, MN 55403 612-746-2070 main line 612-746-2072 direct dial amanda.birnstengel at themim.org www.themim.org ___ 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 at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
[MCN-L] Computer systems for a new museum
Amanda, Software for Collections Management: Here in the UK MDA is often asked the question Which collections management system should I buy?. What we generally say that is not possible to give a simple answer and advise them to make their decision based on a number of different factors: * How much money do you have to spend? One thing to note is that the number of objects being managed is not an issue for price. * What do you want the system to do? For example does the system enable web publication. * What do others say about a system? You are doing that here, but do not hesitate to ask for a reference from a system vendor, specifically for your type of museum, if possible. * Does a system support standards? These could be ICT technical standards, but key here is support of museum information management standards. For example MDA publishes a information management standard, SPECTRUM, which many systems vendors used to design their systems. The standard is now free to download and use non-commercially: http://www.mda.org.uk/spectrum.htm We have over 3,000 licences for SPECTRUM worldwide (about 250 in the USA), and have just signed an agreement for translation and localisation in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium). Since 2005 we have run an MDA Partner scheme for those who wish to use SPECTRUM commercially and to have the opportunity to have their systems validated against the standards. Information about these MDA Partners' systems can be found at: http://www.mda.org.uk/software.htm Hope this is of help Gordon. *** Gordon McKenna e-mail: gordon at mda.org.uk MDA The Spectrum Building, The Michael Young Centre, Purbeck Road Cambridge CB2 2PD, UK Tel:+44 1223 415760 Fax:+44 1223 415960 Setting the standard for managing collections information *** http://www.mda.org.uk/
[MCN-L] Computer systems for a new museum
In addition to Gordon's excellent advice, I would recommend that (although I'm sure you dread the idea of doing this) you consider writing a Request For Proposal and shopping it to the CMS vendors. Even if you imagine that your institution is too small to warrant this effort, it is enormously helpful in clarifying your needs and understanding how your institution works. In addition to what Perian says about not rolling your own I would just point out that even if you never share your data with an aggregator or another institution, you will eventually want to move to a new system yourself and having one that is known, employs standards, is well documented, has OTHER USERS and has good export facilities will save you months of grief in the future. Finally, talk your administration into sending you to the MCN meeting this fall. You can meet almost every CMS vendor that exists there and see their products in a much more informed and congenial environment than you would at something like AAM. Chuck Patch Director of Systems The Historic New Orleans Collection
