Paul Rowe is the Joint CEO of Vernon Systems Ltd (in Auckland, “an outer suburb of Wellington”, said David).

Vernon Systems has developed a collections management system for the desktop (“Vernon CMS”, a long time ago, from 1985), but recently has been focused on embracing the new 2.0 tools to build into their offering.

Are working with Te Papa on a new collections management system, on the Web. Two parts to the project:
– a directory of museums around NZ, and what collections each hold.
– a new collections management system for Te Papa and other museums.

Vernon won the tender for the above work, with Vernon’s new eHive product is the underlying technology. Museums can catalogue and organize their information.

Key goals:
– update the look
– include collection “items”, not just the total level name of the collection
– include events, exhibitions and stories
– changing content, seeing new things that have been added

The development of eHive:
– started in 2005 … determined key goals and functions. Selected eHive.com as the naming approach.
– wanted new users to be able to access and use it with very little training
– users can mark any particular collection item as a “public” item
– offered it as a hosted service, so museums don’t have to do all of the management and administration
– can create communities by aggregating content spread across many eHive accounts
– tools that automatically create multiple smaller images, to make load time faster.
– the public can add search terms (in the way they see things) to items in the public collection.
– multi-lingual flexibility built in from day one.
– some future options … GIS integration (location analysis), stories (text entries that link to specific structured records), RSS (subscribing to updates of interest), eCommerce

Closing
– eHive is a revolutionary new offering.
– Embraces Web 2.0 content.
– NZ Museums is our first example of the re-use of eHive content.