Attendance to museums, particularly the small and medium ones (SMMs), continues to decline mainly because most museums are not able to engage their public through digital contents and experience. In a global scenario where only 43% of museum collections are still digitized and only 7% of digitalized collection are available on the web, the biggest priority for around 17.000 European SMMs in the next few years is to implement a digital age shift in order to find a new and sustainable business model that works within the context of our changing society.
Going digital for SMMs, with few staff, low salaries and limited resources, is challenging. Most significant barriers to digital development in museums are slow or limited IT systems and network (52%), lack of time (80%) and lack of resources (66%). Indeed, current solutions available on the market are too costly and often unaffordable for the most part of museums. Besides, museums are not gaining profit of co-working and open innovation initiatives that could be facilitated by the worldwide network.
Digitisation of collections is very profitable for society at it allows a better preservation of valuable items that will form a heritage of future generations. In addition to this, digital assets can be easily accessed from anywhere facilitating dissemination of knowledge and culture.
Overall objectives of coMwork include the development of a very affordable software for museums of any size which integrates a Collection Management System (a cataloguing system that contains record surrogates of the museum’s objects), a Digital Asset Management system (a system which stores and preserves the digital assets) and a Web CMS, Content Management System (for easily publishing catalogues on the web). In addition to this, it will provide new features which facilitate collaboration among museum staff and also with external users (researchers, press agencies, art transporters, other museums, etc.).
