There is always a wealth of information related to any single artifact in a museum or archive collection, and curators know that providing supporting materials to researchers, authors, students and faculty is critical to expanding knowledge. The Colorado University Art Museum is leveraging technology to share important resources relating to single objects and to structure collections of related artifacts to enrich the museum visitor’s experience, whether in person or virtual.

Originally posted 10/27/2014 on Argus.net blogger

People love to uncover “hidden gems” and in the past, the Kalamazoo Valley Museum definitely fell into that category…it was “hidden.” Historically a hands-on family friendly place focused on educating and entertaining the local community, KVM’s new strategy includes showcasing their collection to virtual visitors around the world. Museums are knowledge repositories, and knowledge is most powerful when it’s shared. Aware of this, the founder of the Smithsonian Institution, James Smithson, stated he wanted to establish an institution "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” and today’s visionary museum leaders who continue in his footsteps are recognizing that technology is the key to that diffusion.

Originally posted on Argus.net blogger 9/5/2014

Just recently the ubiquitous barcode turned 40. Yes, amazingly it has been 40 years since retailers started scanning products at the grocery store till. At this point you might be asking: “How does this relate to museums?”

Originally posted 8/27/2014 on Imagic's blog
Faceted searching is becoming a standard for special libraries that want to help end users find relevant content quickly and easily. Not all library automation systems today offer faceted searching. If they do, it’s definitely a competitive advantage.  

Originally posted on Inmagic blog 7/30/2014

The majority of firms that approach us are struggling with low intranet /portal user adoption. There are many factors that contribute to this problem, but “empty portal syndrome” can be overcome if administrators stay focused on some key success factors.

Originally posted on the Argus.net blogger 5/11/2014

As with all museums, your Collections Management Policy will stipulate (and provide guidelines for) regular inventories of your collection, whether they are annual 100% inventories of your entire collection or more frequent random samplings. The introduction of collection management software over the years has made the maintenance and retrieval of inventory information much easier.

Originally posted on Argus.net blogger 3/13/2014

The role of collections management software has changed over the years. Originally, registrars used software to describe objects and collections. As software feature sets became more robust, and as other staff members began to use them, the role of collections management solutions changed, too. The products that are in use today continue to support the museum’s descriptive needs, and they also offer documentation capabilities that save time and resources with regard to the collections and the processes that are vital to maintaining them. All good! But what are museums doing with other critical content: the detailed conservation reports, the correspondence from donors, the documents related to provenance, and other vital documents that relate to the collection and museum operations as a whole?