[Koha] Musing on a museum module

[Trevor Jenkins]

A little while ago I enquired whether there was any interest amongst the
Koha community in a museum module. A few people responded in the
affirmative. :-) Seems to be a rather small and widely scattered group
(me: UK, two: US, one?: NZ).

My first thought is whether this fits into Koha! Whilst there are some
proprietary library systems that have museum bolt-ons the latter modules
are just that bolt-ons. The functional provision is therefore limited by
the underlying library workflow assumptions.

My second thought concerns the design of a museum module. Although the
proprietary systems use the same or similar database this might not be the
best choice. It is clearly a case of shoe-horning additional requirements.
results in various comprises. There are also national standards for museum
databases. For example here in the UK it is the Museum Documentation
Association's SPECTRUM. Other national museum communities have similar
standards. None of these are National Standards from BSI, ANSI, AFNOR,
DIN, SiS or even ISO but are "de facto" standards. (I was part of the
BSI/ISO cummunity responsible for SGML so am very aware of the different
status "standards" have.) SPECTRUM is somewhat unwieldy and its
documentaion is targeted at the museum professional not software
engineers.

Perhaps those interested would comment upon these thougts. First, should a
museum module be added to Koha itself or is it better to use Koha as an
example of open source achievements. Second, what database model should be
adapted for a museum module/system? Personally, I'm not a fan of
relational systems; my primarty experience is with text retrieval systems.
Though my intent here is to consider the "schema" for a museum system not
to make product choices.

Regards, Trevor

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