Collections management software helps museums, art galleries, and other businesses with large collections of art objects or antiquities monitor and maintain said collections. For a museum or art gallery, it is important to have a record of each piece in the collection that contains its location and other pertinent information, such as how it was obtained or its conservation or restoration status. Collections management software enables these institutions to digitize records, making it much easier to search for information about specific objects quickly and update that information when needed. Collections management software may be used by curators, conservators, archivists, researchers, and administrators to perform their daily tasks that help maintain the entire collection of an institution.
Collections management software is often utilized in conjunction with either museum management software or gallery management software, depending on the institution. Museums may also use admission-based nonprofit software or donor management software to support daily operations. Galleries or auction houses may use auction software for art or antique auctions. Digital asset management (DAM) software helps any institution maintain a purely digital collection of images, video files, or audio files.
To qualify for inclusion in the Collections Management category, a product must:
Create records for each object in the collection
Provide a means to easily search through and update records
Track conservation and restoration efforts
Allow users to catalog objects however they wish