The Potential of the Museum Collection Management Systems (MCMS) Development in Hong Kong Museum of History (HKMH)

Abstract

The advent of technologies has provided enormous opportunities in the field of heritage preservation and access. It also coincides with the rising demand from the general public as well as the scientific community of more immediate, more expansive, and more detailed access to cultural heritage. To cope with this change, museums should adopt more information technology (IT) in its management and services, despite various challenges. The traditional mode of running a museum is no longer adequate to fulfill visitors’ needs. Thus, it is important to have a centralized system to meet this rising demand. In this paper, we study the potential of adopting a Museum Collection Management System (MCMS) with user-oriented approached at the Hong Kong Museum of History (HKMH). The result showed that it is lacking of an efficient collection management mechanism. By using the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) as an example (as they are using MCMS and relevant features to obtain collection information via their website), challenges and possible solutions are discussed, which will eventually help changing the whole picture of HKMH.