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Museum Cataloging- ContentDM vs. museum-specific software
Currently I am working for a newly established museum where we have been using Excel spreadsheets as our main cataloging system. In a matter of months our catalog (which is part of a university) will be rolled into a new university-wide digital collections management system (we are leaning toward ContentDM). While ContentDM seems to provide an excellent means through which the public may access a searchable database of the museum's collections, I am wondering if it will be capable to meet all the cataloging needs of a growing museum whose collections include archival materials and photographs as well as artifacts. Has anyone worked with ContentDM (or similar software) in the past and does anyone recommend our museum to have its own museum-specific cataloging software in addition to its database in ContentDM? It is my instinct to urge my superiors to budget for the purchase of museum-specific cataloging software, but I would greatly appreciate your insight and any advice you may offer.
Hi Lindsay,
We're currently using CONTENTdm as an access point for our museum objects. It does not hold all of our museum-specific metadata. We also have an Access database where any administrative metadata is held. Any work that needs to be captured about the object is captured there. Only descriptive metadata goes into the CDM instance.
This plays to CDM's strengths as a place to access digitized archival/photographic materials and not necessarily as a content management system or true digital repository (though you can pay OCLC for more services than we've chosen to).
Hope this helps,
Andrea