Timeless Collections Management—Argus for Now, Argus for the Future

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia is the largest art museum in Atlantic Canada; it is an agency of the Province of Nova Scotia and one of the premier arts institutions in Canada. The Gallery is a gateway for the visual arts in Atlantic Canada and is responsible for acquiring, preserving and exhibiting works of art, and for providing education in the visual arts. They manage their collections with Argus.

The Gallery had been using a database system for a number of years to do the basics of collections management, but it became obsolete, and procuring a new system to meet the security and infrastructure requirements of Provincial IT was imperative. The legacy system was computer licensed rather than user-based, with access for only six staff members, so a few people fielded all questions about the collection—and importantly, there was a pressing concern about data loss once the database was unsupported by the vendor.

After what Curator Shannon Parker described as a “rigorous procurement process,” they selected Web-based Argus, in large part because it provides access for the entire Gallery staff, offers powerful permissions management and security, and supports the organizational mandate to increase public exposure as much as possible.

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia now enjoys an innovative collections management system that will always be perfectly suited to their needs and the preferences of their public audience, even as those needs flex and change over time.

We invite you to learn more about the many ways the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia leverages Argus. Read their full success story here.