History Colorado is a historical society dedicated to offering public access to the cultural and heritage resources of Colorado. Their statewide activities support tourism, historic preservation, and education and research related to Colorado’s rich western history. With the recent launch of the Online Portal, the collection is now widely accessible to the public, to researchers, and to other museums and archives via the Web. The portal readily facilitates access to profoundly important collection resources which History Colorado has amassed to document the people and places of Colorado. Through the Stephen Hart Library and Research Center, visitors can access the collection and can also take advantage of research assistance and photo reproduction services.

Challenges

History Colorado leaders, including Melissa de Bie, Director of Collections Management and Registration, wanted to move to a SaaS (vendor hosted) collection management solution to take advantage of ongoing maintenance and automatic upgrades, and eliminate the need to manage the infrastructure themselves. Also, as satisfied long term self-hosted clients of “classic” Argus, they wanted to fully leverage the powerful new Web-based version. Given their excellent relationship with Lucidea, they were very confident continuing the partnership by both upgrading to the Web offering and moving to the SaaS option. When they learned about the robust Web publishing capabilities Argus offers, they realized it would accommodate all their top priorities: user friendliness; easy reporting capabilities; easy import/export and Web access to the collection.

Solutions

Remote access via the Web is of particular importance. It allows Ms. De Bie and her team to showcase specific collections and online exhibitions, broadening their public outreach and supporting HC’s goal of facilitating research and education. The ability to perform the full suite of Argus administrative functions remotely is also critical since many staff members work from home or log in from different sites in the History Colorado network. As is often the case for museums and archives, there are many volunteers and interns who must learn to use a collection management system. With minimal training required and robust security and permission levels, Argus is the perfect option, allowing interns and volunteers to start working with artifacts right away – offering them a more rewarding experience, with work flow that accelerates task completion and helps increase productivity. With Argus, History Colorado can: Measure It and Manage It with the Power of Statistics • Determine curatorial focus, tailor online services, support virtual visitors Do-it-Themselves with Batch Record Importing/Creating/Updating • Enjoy independence and operational efficiency Please Everyone – with Customized Views • Deliver role/department based views; leverage as a time saver for training and workflow Power Up the Portal • Customize for every audience and auto-enable service requests, research requests or site feedback The History Colorado Center is designed to “help people experience the past from entirely new perspectives.” Offering public access to their images and artifacts with Argus certainly supports and extends that goal, and leverages technology in a way that reinforces their reputation as a history museum of the twenty-first century.