Argus Reviews & Product Details

Argus is a web-based museum collections management system (CMS) that helps museum and gallery staff document, manage, and share their collections. Developed by Lucidea, Argus is used by collections managers, registrars, and curators to record objects and their history, manage museum activities such as accessions, loans, and exhibitions, and publish selected records online through an integrated public portal. Organizations that use Argus include art, history, and archaeology museums, galleries, halls of fame, corporate and government collections, and combined archive, library, and museum organizations. Argus runs entirely in a web browser, so staff can work from a PC, Mac, tablet, or smartphone in the gallery, storage area, or office without installing software. Argus is a relational database, which means records for objects, people, and activities are linked, and staff can see an object’s loan, exhibition, and conservation history in one place. Main capabilities: - Object and collection records: Provenance, donor and ownership information, current and past locations with batch location updates, condition reports and conservation history, valuations and insurance, rights and reproduction, and linked images, audio, video, and documents. - Museum activities: Accessions, deaccessions, incoming and outgoing loans, exhibitions, inventory, rights and reproduction requests, and NAGPRA and repatriation transfers. - Configuration without programming: Museum staff can add, edit, or remove fields, build data-entry views for different roles or collection types, and use authority-controlled fields and a hierarchical lexicon, with no limits on fields or record types. Group-based permissions control what each user can see and change. - Integrated public portal: Portal content is pulled directly from the catalog, with no separate export or publishing step. Museum staff choose which records and fields are public. The portal supports WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility requirements and faceted search, and its content can be indexed by search engines. - Search, reporting, and integration: Keyword, Boolean, and saved searches; a report writer and report designer for documents such as deeds of gift and loan agreements; export to CSV, XML, Word, and Excel; single sign-on (SAML 2.0) and Active Directory support; and a RESTful API that institutions can use to connect Argus with their website, membership software, AI tools, or digital asset management system. Argus is available as software as a service (SaaS) hosted in US or Canadian data centres, or on-premises. Lucidea’s in-house team offers implementation, data migration from spreadsheets and other collections systems, training, and 24/7 technical support. Customers own their data and can export it themselves. Lucidea, founded in 1989, is a SOC 2 Type II certified company with 3,000+ clients in 50+ countries.