Evaluating archival content management systems for the AMNH

ArchivesSpace

From June through December 2014, I served as the metadata intern at the American Museum of Natural History Research Library, working on their CLIR Hidden Collections project. My primary responsibility was evaluating archival content management systems to determine the best way to manage both EAD and EAC-CPF records. I mostly looked at ArchivesSpace, Access to Memory (AtoM), and xEAC.

I wrote a blog post about my work:

As somewhat-early adopters of the EAC-CPF schema the museum is a few steps ahead of the leading software applications for archives. Our robust records, created via Excel macros and stored on shared network drives, are waiting for a good home where they can interact with other archival records and help link together collections housed in various divisions within the museum. That potential repository is currently being built in some form or another, and it’s not yet ready for move-in. A couple of these applications get us some of the way there, so it’s possible that we may have to get creative with customizations, foot the bill for the development of new features, or link two systems together in order to firmly establish a place for our stuff.