DAM and Museums 2025
Digitizing the Science Museum Collection - the Power of Technology to Scale up Digitization and Open-up Collections to Online Audiences
The Science Museum Group recently completed the largest collection move in its history - transferring 300,000 objects into a new state-of-the-art collections management building.
Alongside the physical move was an ambition to ‘digitally open-up’ the collection to online audiences.
A large-scale digitization project was undertaken - the catalyst for developing innovative workflows and technology, including:
- Object barcoding.
- Rapid data capture.
- An automated image ingest pipeline.
- Integration of the CMS and DAM.
In addition, the Collections Online discovery site was significantly improved to better present the collection.
This once-in-a-generation opportunity has enabled the Science Museum Group to tell the stories of the objects to audiences beyond the physical reach of the museum.
The number of objects with an image online has increased from 25,000 to 220,000. With more records having images available online, there has been a significant increase in use of the collection and many more web visits.
