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KE Software

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Coordinates: 53°28′26.6″N 2°14′39.8″W / 53.474056°N 2.244389°W / 53.474056; -2.244389
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KE Software
Industrycomputer software
Founded1970s
SuccessorThe Axiell Group (2014)
HeadquartersManchester, United Kingdom
Products
  • Ke EMu Electronic Museum management system
  • Vitalware Vital Records Management System

53°28′26.6″N 2°14′39.8″W / 53.474056°N 2.244389°W / 53.474056; -2.244389 KE Software is a formerly Australian-owned computer software company based in Manchester, United Kingdom, which specialises in collection management programs for museums, galleries and archives.[1] The Axiell Group purchased the firm in 2014.[2]

History

KE Software had its origins in investigations into electronic systems for managing natural science collections conducted in the late 1970s under a joint program of the University of Melbourne, the then National Museum of Victoria and the Australian Museum, which led to the development of the Titan Database in 1984. This evolved into Textpress, and by 2000, the KE EMu database program.[3] KE Software was bought by Axiell in 2014 and the team merged with the Axiell staff. Axiell continues to sell and support EMu.

Products

The firm has two main products: the Ke EMu Electronic Museum management system,[4] a collections management system for museums; and Vitalware Vital Records Management System.[5] The first version of Ke EMu was launched in 1997 and uses the Texpress database engine with client/server architecture on a Windows or Unix/Linux server.[6] Ke Emu is consistent with the Dublin Core / Darwin Core standards for archive and museum catalogue metadata.[7] "The company’s clients include the three largest museums in the world.:[8]

KE EMu

KE EMu is considered one of the more effective and purpose-designed museum cataloguing programs.[9] particularly in the creation of public interfaces to museum catalogue data.[10][11]

KE EMu was further developed in 1997 as a multilingual platform, which has been utilised in bilingual institutions such as the Canadian Museum of Civilisation.[12] Subsequently this evolved into Texpress and KE EMu (standing for Electronic MUseum) in 2000, which is "now used across the world in natural science museums with huge collections'".[3]

KE EMu is used by a large number of museums and galleries around the world, including the Smithsonian Anthropological Collection,[13] American Museum of Natural History[14]Vancouver Art Gallery,[15] New York Botanical Garden,[16] the University of Chicago Research Archives,[17] the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia,[18] the National Museum of Australia, the Australian Museum,[19] Museum of Victoria,[20] University of Melbourne Archives,[21] and the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.[22]

There are over 300 clients, and more than 5000 users of the EMu software worldwide. The program has been described as providing "...comprehensive museum management (collection management plus other administrative needs for a museum), workflow and project management, flexible metadata, various stats and metrics, and comprehensive web interface with support for mobile devices and kiosks"[23]

KE Vitalware

The firm's vitalware software is used by a number of governments and commercial organisations for managing and accessing large data sets, such as the birth records of the Trinidad and Tobago Registrar General,[24][25] the Government of Anguilla, Ministry for Infrastructure, Communications, Utility and Housing,[26] and the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services.[27][28]

Further development

A specialist tracking component for KE EMu has been developed by Forbes Hawkins of Museum Victoria. This enables locations to be barcoded, and data to be updated as items are moved around the stores, or between venues, display, laboratories and other locations. This system has been considered by Museums around the world.[29] The company has been working with Australian government agencies to digitize birth deaths and marriage registers in order to cross match identity data.[30] The program has also been used for managing the Australian Plant Disease Database and the Australian Plant Pest Database as the program "...has several features that have proven to be invaluable for a plant disease database".[31]

References

  1. ^ KE Software relocates to new Manchester offices Office Space News, 31 May 2011
  2. ^ My News Desk
  3. ^ a b Tim Hart and Martin Hallett, 2011, 'Australian museums and the technology revolution', in Understanding Museums: Australian Museums and Museology, Des Griffin and Leon Paroissien (eds), National Museum of Australia ISBN 978-1-876944-92-6
  4. ^ Intellectual Property in Australia, Trade Mark Details
  5. ^ KE Software Corporate Web Page kesoftware.com 'About' accessed 21/09/2015
  6. ^ About EMu's Database Engine
  7. ^ Rebekah Baquiran, 'KE Emu:Getting a Flightless Bird Off the Ground', Field Museum of Natural History
  8. ^ KE Software becomes a part of the Swedish Axiell Group, Published: Friday, 04 April 2014
  9. ^ Lord, B & Lord, G.D., 1997, The Manual of Museum Management, Rowman, Altamira Press, pp.72-73
  10. ^ The Museums Journal, Volume 106, Issues 7-12 Museums Association, 2006.
  11. ^ Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, Volume 5, AltaMira Press, 2009, pp.152-7
  12. ^ Lucy A. Tedd, J. A. Large Digital Libraries: Principles and Practice in a Global Environment, Walter de Gruyter, 2005 p.120
  13. ^ Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, Volume 48, Smithsonian Institution Press, 2004
  14. ^ Hidden Connections, Expeditionary Field Work at the American Museum of Natural History
  15. ^ Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship, By Joan M. Benedetti, Scarecrow Press, 1 Jan 2007 p.130
  16. ^ New York Botanical Garden Virtual Herbarium Best Practices Guide
  17. ^ The Oriental Institute, Research Archives, University of Chicago
  18. ^ Fowler Williams and David McKnight, 'Through the Eyes of Louis Shotridge: Sharing Alaska’s Native Tlingit History' A Digital Archive Project at Penn
  19. ^ Annual Report, Australian Museum, The Museum, 2002
  20. ^ Lookatmedam, Testimonials 'Museum Victoria', Media Equation Pty Ltd.
  21. ^ FAREWELL TO CHRISTINE ELIAS June 22, 2015 by University of Melbourne Archives in UMA projects
  22. ^ "Replacing Tapuhi with Tiaki | Replacing TAPUHI with Tiaki - all systems go | Our services for researchers | National Library of New Zealand". natlib.govt.nz. Retrieved 2016-10-14.
  23. ^ Chris Fincham, head of U.S. operations, Collection management systems: Museums and the Web 2011 7-Apr-2011
  24. ^ Corey Connelly, Birth certificate in minutes—minister Trinidad & Tobago Guardian Friday, May 22, 2009
  25. ^ Government of Trinidad & Tobago, Hansard, SENATE Tuesday, November 02, 2004
  26. ^ Government of Anguilla2015 estimates of recurrent revenue, expenditure and capital
  27. ^ Mississippi Department of Health Bureau of Public Health Statistics State of Mississippi, USA[permanent dead link]
  28. ^ Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services, procurement
  29. ^ Jenny Sinclair, 'Tracking 16 million artefacts', The Sydney Morning Herald May 20 2003
  30. ^ Chris Griffith, 'Backlogs of birth, death records prone to ID thefts' The Australian, October 04, 2011
  31. ^ Shivas, R. G., Beasley, D. R., Pascoe, I. G., Cunnington, J. H., Pitkethley, R. N., Priest, M. J. Specimen-based databases of Australian plant pathogens: past, present and future, Australasian Plant Pathology March 2006, Volume 35, Issue 2, pp 195-198
  • [1] Collection Trust UK management software comparison chart.
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