There are several ways museums can benefit from creative partnerships, including shared approaches to their Collections Management Systems. In our last post, we explored the first of these approaches: the Unified Hub, where multiple institutions share a single database instance to maximize resources and benefit from a shared CMS tool.
While this model has many benefits, it’s not for everyone. Some institutions require more autonomy, have unique data structures, or face legal hurdles that make sharing a single Collections Management System (CMS) impractical.
With these constraints in mind, this post will look at an alternative partnership approach: The Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Bridge. In this model, museums maintain separate, independent databases but use a shared software tool or “bridge” to communicate, exchange data, and collaborate on projects.
What is the Peer-to-Peer Bridge?
Think of the P2P Bridge as a community of houses on the same street. Each museum has its own house (its local database) with its own rules, locks, and interior design. However, your neighbor has a house key that allows access to certain parts of the house to perform specific activities.
Unlike the Unified Hub, the P2P model allows institutions to keep their data physically separate while still benefiting from a connected technical framework.
A Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Bridge allows each partnering institution to maintain a separate CMS while still benefiting from a shared software relationship, potential bulk purchasing advantages, and cross-institutional collaboration.
The Peer-to-Peer Bridge at-a-glance:
- A separate but connected partnership approach.
- 2+ institutions, each with their own database.
Two Requirements for the P2P Bridge
For best results, this approach has two requirements:
- Participating museums use the same CMS product.
- The CMS product supports cross-institutional partnership through assignment of appropriate security access and permissions.
The Model in Action: The Joint Stewardship of the Robert Mapplethorpe Collection
A well-known example of this involves the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), who jointly acquired the Robert Mapplethorpe collection.
The institutions adopted a shared-but-separate CMS approach, leveraging a cloud-based CMS and role-based permissions to view or edit specific records in the partner museum’s system. As this is an internal connection, there aren’t as many public examples available as there are for the Unified Hub and Discovery Portal models.
But that’s not to say it’s not a popular approach. Museums that often collaborate may wish to consider this approach in future strategic planning.
The Partnership Edge: Why Choose the Bridge?
For many museum professionals, this model offers the best of both worlds:
- Total Data Autonomy: You maintain full control over your server, backups, and local customizations. This is critical for institutions with strict IT security policies or sensitive collection data that cannot legally leave the premises.
- Reduced “Social Contract” Friction: While the Unified Hub requires total agreement on every cataloging field, the P2P Bridge allows for local variations. You can follow your own internal protocols for niche collections while still mapping your core data to a shared standard for external discovery.
- Scalable Collaboration: It’s easier to “onboard” a new partner into a bridge than into a unified database. A new museum doesn’t have to migrate their entire history into your system; they just need to adopt the shared bridge tool to start collaborating.
The Partnership Challenge: The Maintenance Burden
Shared systems rest on local responsibility. In a P2P Bridge, each institution is still responsible for its own:
- IT Infrastructure: You must maintain your own CMS which can include annual licensing commitments, or maintenance updates dependent upon the level of vendor support.
- Security and Access Permissions: For the connection to be possible, access must be granted and appropriate permissions assigned—and maintained to reflect staffing changes and each employee’s level of access to partner data.
Without a central hub administrator, the burden of staying technically current with appropriate access permissions in place falls on each individual museum.
A New Era of Collaboration
The P2P Bridge represents a significant shift in how museums think about their most valuable digital asset: their data. By choosing a path that balances institutional autonomy with strategic connectivity, museums can move past the silo mentality that has historically hindered large-scale collaboration.
As we’ve seen with the joint stewardship of the Robert Mapplethorpe collection by the Getty and LACMA, the P2P Bridge isn’t just a technical configuration—it’s a trust framework. It allows institutions to act as a unified front for research and preservation while respecting the sovereignty of their individual Collections Management Systems.
0 Comments