En route to a single Flemish heritage database
7 Feb 2023Exciting news from the Flemish heritage databases! In this project, since 2019, we have been investigating how to replace the originally provincial registration and collection management systems, Erfgoedplus and Erfgoedinzicht. Following months of discussions and market analysis (link in Dutch), we can now untangle some decisive knots.
A quick recap: upon request from the Flemish Department of Culture, Youth and Media, we are working towards a solution for the current heritage databases in the coming years. How do we replace them and create an optimal service? Following numerous consultations, analyses and market research, we have reached a conclusion:
We are building a single collection management system for everyone! Until now, we had been considering two separate systems, but the feedback we received from you as current or future users was clear: a single solution is the preferred way forward. Our market research has allowed us to affirm its feasibility.
As well as accommodating museum objects, this system will also include less obvious data: publications, archives and contact details.
Putting all these functionalities together to form a coherent whole is quite a puzzle, but we have drawn up a plan.
Training, guidance and support are very important aspects of this project. We have therefore outlined a basic management model, which the future supplier will develop in more detail.
The heritage database will contain a vast amount of data, and not every organisation will be able to easily create an online window to their collection. We are therefore considering simple web access as an option in the specification phase.
Three men dusting books, one bent over, New York Public Library, 1913. Licentie: no known copyright restrictions.
Next, we are working together with a working group and putting pen to paper to write the specifications. We hope to choose a supplier and a product by the end of this year. See the full timeline here.
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