UC Berkeley iNews, January 27, 2011
Chris Hoffman, Patrick Schmitz, and David Greenbaum From Art to Zoology, UC Berkeley is home to world-class research and teaching museums that are internationally known for the quality and importance of their collections. Collection management systems are the software systems used by museums to manage the physical and digital items in their collections, to document transactions such as acquisitions and loans, and to share information about their collections with students, educators, researchers, and the public. According to our estimates however, across campus more than three million objects are being managed in approximately twenty different collection management systems. These collection management systems run on different hardware and software platforms that are managed by five or more different technology teams whose skill sets and assignments vary. Often the software is old and does not meet existing and emerging needs. Funding models are inadequate, and governance is unclear. In short, collection management systems face the same challenges as most other major kinds of software at UC Berkeley. read more at inews.berkeley.edu...