Welcome to Archival Software

This wiki contains information about archival management and description tools.  It emerges out of a January 2009 report on archival management tools written by Lisa Spiro for the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), but we hope that archivists and software developers will contribute new information to keep it a fresh, valuable resource. Note that inclusion of software in this wiki does not indicate an endorsement, nor does an application's absence suggest dissatisfaction. Please contact Lisa at lspiro@rice.edu if you would like to contribute information to the wiki.  For example, you could add another tool, update information about a tool already described, make a comment, and so forth. See Contributing to this wiki for more information.

See also the Council of Nova Scotia Archives' Archives Management Software Review (January 2009) and CDL Digital Special Collections' Collection Management and Creation Strategies for UC Special Collections and Archives (October 2009).

Report on Archival Management Systems

Foreword

1. Introduction
2. The Problem of Hidden Collections
3. The Role of Software in Addressing Hidden Collections
4. Research Method
5. How to Select Archival Management Software
6. Criteria for Choosing Archival Software
7. Types of Software
8. Possible Approaches to Federating Archival Description from Multiple Repositories
9. Conclusion
10. Acknowledgements
11. Works Cited
12. Appendix 1: Archival Workflow
13. Appendix 2: Archival Management Systems Features Matrix [Brief]
14. Appendix 3: Detailed Features Matrices
1. AdLibArchive Features Matrix 
2. Archivists' Toolkit Features Matrix

3. Archon Features Matrix

4. CALM Features Matrix

5. Cuadra STAR Features Matrix

6. Eloquent Archives Features Matrix

7. ICA-ATOM Features Matrix

8. MINISIS M2A Features Matrix

9. CollectiveAccess Features Matrix

10. Past Perfect Features Matrix

11. Acheevo Features Matrix 

15. Appendix 4: User Feedback

1. Archivists' Toolkit User Feedback

2. Archon User Feedback

3. Cuadra STAR User Feedback

4. Eloquent Archives User Feedback

5. CollectiveAccess User Feedback