COLLECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Annamaria Poma Swank Report settembre 2008 REPORT: COLLECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS COLLECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS è distribuito sotto licenza: Creative Commons 2.5 (Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 2.5 Italia) una licenza di tipo copyleft scelta per consentirne la libera diffusione. Si riporta il testo in linguaggio accessibile, copia del testo integrale della licenza in: <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/it/legalcode> Tu sei libero: di riprodurre, distribuire, comunicare al pubblico, esporre in pubblico, rappresentare, eseguire e recitare quest'opera. Alle seguenti condizioni: Attribuzione. Devi attribuire la paternità dell'opera nei modi indicati dall'autore o da chi ti ha dato l'opera in licenza. Non commerciale. Non puoi usare quest'opera per fini commerciali. Non opere derivate. Non puoi alterare o trasformare quest'opera, nÈ usarla per crearne un'altra. Ogni volta che usi o distribuisci quest'opera, devi farlo secondo i termini di questa licenza, che va comunicata con chiarezza. In ogni caso, puoi concordare col titolare dei diritti d'autore utilizzi di quest'opera non consentiti da questa licenza. Le utilizzazioni consentite dalla legge sul diritto d'autore e gli altri diritti non sono in alcun modo limitati da quanto sopra. REPORT: COLLECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ABSTRACT Collection Management software are computer based systems created to fulfill the need of museums to better manage all the museum’s information about their collections, avoid duplications, and improve communication between the various departments. The evolution of museums automation goes back to the 60s when the possibility of using technology for museums was explored at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and IBM 1968 conference. The literature review reveals that in the beginning museums started to use automation to provide access to collection information. However since 1997, the Internet has changed dramatically the roles of museums and cultural institutions restaging the relationship between people and material objects. It is a fact that technology was becoming not only a tool for museums staff to control and manage the museums but to make museum’s collections available to museums users. For this reason we focus our analysis to the Collection Management Software available on the market and their vendors to outline the features of their products, matching their offering to the more and more demanding needs of collection management and content delivery. The traditional Collection Management Software is simple related to the use of the museums staff. But the implementation of public access -“the museum without walls”- has shifted in the past ten years from merely creating a management tool for museums staff to the creation of web content management systems So far vendors web interfaces offerings were under particular scrutiny to compare with the requirements for Web site development, digitization project planning, best practices, use of appropriate international standards and more. In order to deliver a good grasp to the State of the art of the CMSs development we divide the paper in the following sections: • Introduction • Products description and analysis • List of vendors and of vendor's Web site, vendor's address, year founded, name of contact person (if available) telephone, fax, and email • List of products by vendors including Web access, archives, or library; podcasting; bar- coding, etc. • List of products' version and version date, operating systems, compliance with the CHIN and SPECTRUM standards, updating date (if available) (table) • Documents While we focus primarily-into proprietary software, in the introduction we found useful to provide insight into the recent rise to prominence of Open source software and Free software (OSS/FS) as an option to the proprietary software traditional approach. We believe in the usefulness of this report, however we also believe that more studies are needed to further investigate the impact of the new technologies to museum’s collection development policies, their mission, their staffing, their budget their image and identify the relation between what we believe are two completely different worlds: the museum within and the museum without...(italic ours). 2 REPORT: COLLECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS SPECIAL THANKS This project was made possible by a fund from the Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale (FRD). I want to thank first of all prof. Paolo Galluzzi, Director of Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza and president of FRD. Prof. Galluzzi kindly approved my project proposal in the Fall 2007 and gave me the great opportunity of exploring a topic of great interest for me as an art historian and an art librarian. Working for him is always and honour and an intellectual experience of great value. Many people have made this project easier for me to carry on and I would like to thank all of them. However special thanks go to: the Library Manager of the Istituto and Museo di Storia della scienza, dr. Alessandra Lenzi, and to her staff; Dr. Matteo Paternò, IT & Formazione, Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale - Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, who has been very helpful to all my technical problems; all the colleagues who took the time to answer my questions through the MCN-List, and by phone: Liz O'Keefe , The Pierpont Morgan Library, Director of Information Services, 29 East 36th Street, New York, NY 10016-3403, United States, Phone: 212 685-0008 x366, Fax: 212 481-3484, E-mail: [email protected] , Web Site: http://www.morganlibrary.org Ilene Slavick, Cuadra Associates, Inc., Director of Marketing, 11835 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 855, Los Angeles, CA 90064, United States Toll-free: 800-366-1390, Phone: 310-478-0066, Fax: 310-477-1078, E-mail: [email protected] Web Site: http://www.cuadra.com David Hayden, Museum Data Solutions, Principal, 507 Richland Ave STE 102, Athens, OH 45701-3700, United States, Phone: 740.592.3399 x111, Fax: 740.592.3395, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.museumdatasolutions.com Bert Degenhart Drenth, ADLIB Information Systems, Managing Director, Reactorweg 291, P.O. Box 1436, Utrecht, 3542 AD The Netherlands, Phone: (+31) (0)346-5 86 800, Help desk phone number (+31) (0)346-5 86 801, Fax: (+31) (0)346-5 61 655 , E-mail: [email protected] , Web Site: http://www.adlibsoft.com Brian L. Gomez, PastPerfect Software, Inc., Vice President, Operations, 300 N. Pottstown Pike Suite 200, Exton, PA 19341, United States, Toll Free Sales and Support: 1-800-562-6080, Direct Dial: 1-610-363-7844, Mobile: 1-484-883-4198, Fax: 1-610-363-7845, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.museumsoftware.com/ Steve Richardson, Re:discovery Software, Inc., Director of Sales, 3040 Berkmar Drive, Suite B1, Charlottesville, VA 22901, Phone: 208.338.8487, Central office: Phone: 434.975.3256, Fax: 434.975.3935, E-mail: [email protected] Web Site: http://www.rediscoverysoftware.com Gordon McKenna, MDA (now Collections Trust), Standards and Systems Manager, 22 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 1JP, UK, Phone: +44 1223 316028, Fax: +44 1223 364658, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.mda.org.uk/ Christian Lachnitt, GLOMAS Deutschland GmbH, Head of Product Development and Customer Support, Germaniastr. 42, 80805 München, Phone: +49-89 3681990, Fax: +49-89 3611066, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.glomas.com, See also: http://www.glomas.com/en/kontakt/kontakt.html Christopher A. Burcsik, MINISIS Inc., CEO/Directeur Général, 210 West Broadway, 5 th Floor, Vancouver BC V5Y 3W2 Canada, Phone: 1.604.255.4366 x222, Fax: 1.604.255.4367, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.minisisinc.com/ Lisa Steffen, Denver Art Museum, Master Teacher for Western American Art, 100 W 14th Avenue Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204, United States, Phone: 720-913-0059, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.denverartmuseum.org/home Patrick Berger, zetcom, Informatics services Ltd, Sandrainstrasse 3, 3007 Bern, Switzerland, Phone: +41 31 320 10 04, Fax: +41 31 320 10 09, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.zetcom.com Maxine Edwards, Gallery Systems, Business Development Executive, 261 West 35th Street, 12th Fl, New York, NY, 10001-1902, United States, Phone: +1 646 733 2239 ext 225, Fax: +1 646 733 2259, E-mail: [email protected], Web Sites: http://www.gallerysystems.com Murtha Baca, PhD, Getty Research Institute, Head, Standards & Vocabulary Programs, Digital Resource Management, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, California 90049, United States, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/standards Brenda Podemski, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Business Applications Administrator, Collections Information & Access, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, California 90049, United States, Phone: 310-440-7087, Fax: 310-440-7752, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.getty.edu Perian Sully, Judah L. Magnes Museum, Collection Database & Records Administrator, 2911 Russell St., Berkeley, CA 94705, United States, Phone: 510-549-6950 x 335, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.magnes.org 3 REPORT: COLLECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Jay Hoffman, Gallery System, CEO, 261 West 35th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10001, United States, Phone: 1. 646.733.2733, E-mail: [email protected], Web Site: http://www.gallerysystems.com/ Meryl Cinnamon, PALINET, Membership Manager, 3000 Market St., Suite 200, Philadelphia,