Local Government Culture Collections Management – Civic Library of Artifacts
Recently I worked on a project designing a solution that allows local government to manage the culture items that have been collected over years of civic service. The public citizens of the area governed by the Local Government want easy access to view and is some case show items that make up the history of the area. For effective exhibition and use of these items a system was needed that allowed ease of access to multiple staff to load items to the system, confirm the information on the items, protected the copyright of works, as well as the ability to understand the precise location of the item. In addition to these requirements, a schedule of maintenance (if appropriate) was needed to be kept as well as an understanding of the value of the items.
Common items that make up a culture collection
- Art
- Video Footage and Multimedia
- Audio Recordings
- Sculptures
- Photos
- Archaeological items
- Written works
Source of theses collections
Often times these items may have been donated to the city over hundreds of years by various donors for a range of reasons.
Understanding the history
People living in an area often want to gain an understanding of place, what makes up the history of my community? Where did significant events take place and what was recorded about these events?
Standards of recorded information
There a range of standards that should be used in cataloging this information. Common ones are as follows:
- Dublin Core Meta Date [PDF Version]
- Visual Resources Association Core [PDF Version]
- CDWA (Categories for the Description of Works of Arts)
- SEPIADES (SEPIA Data Element Set) [PDF Version]
- SPECTRUM standard
Ease of Access
The system we designed was made up of two parts:
- An internal Cultural Collection Government system that allowed staff to enter items, either manually or by bulk import, with most of the work handled in Outlook.
- A website that allows the public to view the items and see where the items are located for public viewing with the ability to comment on the items and interact with them.
We designed the solution based on two off-the-shelf items of software: Microsoft Dynamics CRM was used for the internal Local Government system, customised for this specific purpose. (This is commonly called an xRM application, as it is a specific solution built on the Dynamics CRM platform.) The second was ADXStudios a website platform that allows for the rapid deployment of websites that uses data from Dynamics CRM with the ability to support the brand of the organisation using it.
The end Local Government Cultural Collections system allows the public at any time to view online items on the web or mobile device of cultural importance, and the location of where items can be viewed. Staff have a system that is easy to maintain, backed up and safe for future generations.
What could be added to this solution to improve it?