A Shared Museum CMS Case Study: Under the umbrella of the Utah Department of Cultural & Community Engagement (UTCCE), the Utah Division of Arts & Museums (UA&M) and the Utah Historical Society (UHS) have united to modernize their digital stewardship. Together, they embarked on a procurement process for a shared Collections Management System (CMS) that could meet the needs of both institutions and be expanded to include future partners. To achieve this, they selected Lucidea’s Argus and ArchivEra platforms to manage their diverse art, artifact, and archival collections.
You can explore the collections of the Utah Division of Arts & Museums and the Utah Historical Society via their public portal.
When two or more museum partners commit to a shared CMS it’s usually with improved collection discovery in mind. For collections to truly connect (for both human and machine interpretation) the museums have to develop a set of shared cataloging standards. This was true for UA&M and UHS. Their partnership centers on a shared catalog approach so that they can present their collections as a united, cross-searchable discovery center for Utah’s cultural heritage. However, they also have individual collection needs that necessitate maintaining specific points of data pertinent to their collection, and processes in place for how they use certain areas of the database.
This post will outline the technical functionality available with Argus record forms and how UA&M and UHS partnered on a shared cataloging approach that worked for both museum collections.
To read more about sharing a single database and an overview of the benefits and challenges, please check out our previous post on Lucidea’s Think Clearly Blog: Power in Partnerships: The Unified Hub.
Flexibility by Design: Argus Record Forms & Functionality
Argus record forms are used to catalog objects and activities that relate to collection objects. Argus has two primary record form areas:
- Object Records: The core data for the items themselves.
- Activity Records: Tracking the life of an object, including:
- Accession
- Exhibits
- Loans (Incoming/Outgoing)
Argus supports multiple record forms of the same type in each area. Access to those forms can be controlled through the assignment of institution ownership and user permissions. This helps to ensure that staff have access to their museum’s specific flavor of record form and not mistakenly use the wrong form.
A Shared Yet Individual Record Form
For the object record form, UA&M and UHS adopted a blended approach. For the core field areas of the object record, the partners adopted a unified standard of which fields to use and their format. In areas of the record that don’t require a cohesive approach, Argus supports individualization so that the partners don’t have to compromise key data needs for their specific collections. This collaborative approach supports their primary goal of presenting a unified and cross-searchable collection to their community of users while also meeting individual collection stewardship needs.
How to Arrive at Catalog Cohesion
In pursuit of presenting a united collection, UA&M and UHS held a series of discussions to define shared cataloging protocols while also making Argus configuration decisions. The decisions they made determined the setup of their record forms with identification of where it made sense to unify best practices.
There are three main record form areas to navigate with a shared CMS approach:
- Shared Catalog Record Template(s): This is the technical agreement on where data lives in any given record type. This practice helps to enforce that data is uniformly placed in the agreed upon field in order to meet shared data goals like improved cross-searching across collections.
- Shared Data Format: Institutions may have different ways of recording faceted information like dates or controlled vocabularies. Blending requires partners to normalize this data. For example, using a MM/DD/YYYY format for dates so the portal’s filters, facets, and timelines function correctly across the entire collective collection.
- Shared Vocabulary: Partners agree to use the same external vocabulary standards—such as ULAN for artist names or AAT for subjects—to ensure that a search for a single creator or topic pulls results from all participating institutions simultaneously.
Each CMS product is different so the degree to which standardization needs to occur is on a spectrum. For example, Argus is able to support a more flexible approach to vocabulary use with the assignment of aggregates. We’ll cover this in more detail in the next post.
The Power of Blended Best Practices
Blending best practices with the adoption of separate but complementary record forms transforms what would’ve been siloed data into a coalesced, high-performing discovery environment. Among the benefits are:
- Enables cross-searchability
- Improved search result quality
- Synchronized filtering and timelines
- Unified collection experience
While these technical features provide the framework for a unified experience, they aren’t “set and forget” and require a commitment to active long-term governance. To prevent data drift and ensure the system continues to serve both institutions, a structure for regular communication is essential.
How to Maintain Catalog Cohesion
The true power of a shared environment lies in the ongoing human collaboration required to keep data clean and consistent. Even now, UA&M and UHS maintain a monthly cadence of meetings with the purpose of holding discussion on CMS use, review of potential changes to the system or processes, and troubleshoot issues. Use of a database can change over time, so ongoing discussions and regular check-ins help to maintain cohesion among the collections. It also serves as a support to staff who can share their collective expertise with each other—helping to lighten the load and ensure everyone’s success in using the system.
Building a Bridge to Collections
The flexibility of Argus record forms allowed UA&M and UHS to maintain their institutional identities without sacrificing the power of a unified system. By designing forms that accommodate both fine art and historical artifacts, they’ve created a roadmap for future State of Utah partners to join the ecosystem seamlessly. But record forms are only a part of the partnership foundation—to make that data truly discoverable, you need a shared language. In our next post, we’ll explore how these two institutions tackled controlled vocabularies and leveraged Argus aggregates to build a bridge between their two collections.
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