Procurement of New Collections Management System

The National Army Museum (NAM) is inviting software vendors and systems integrators to tender for the supply and ongoing support for new Collections Management System(s). The National Army Museum holds approximately a million items in the care of its accessioned Collections. This consists of a wide variety of material with a range of data requirements. The Museum has utilised a digital collections management system since 1990. It migrated to its current platform (Cabal) in 1998 - a custom-designed database, developed and maintained in-house by the Museum's Technical Services team. The system, built on the Claris FileMaker platform, was designed to meet some key principles: • Be designed and constructed in line with both national and international standards, • Allow for rapid data entry by stakeholders, • Create a centralised database of collection items of all types, • Achieve a degree of control over the Museum's collection, • Allow for the inclusion of digitised images and multimedia, • Provide a future-proof, scalable, flexible system, • Be cost effective in development, maintenance and support. Over the years, the system has been adapted and expanded to meet the NAM's changing objectives whilst facilitating the requirements of the Museum's various stakeholder groups. As the Museum enters its latest phase of development, the collections management function has been identified as an area needing improvement and the systems in place to facilitate this function being an area for potential enhancement.