KE Software

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. Much of the credit for the development of the project was due to the work of Martin Hallett of the Museum of Victoria which evolved into Textpress, and by 2000, the KE EMu database program. KE Software was bought by [https://www.axiell.com Axiell] in 2014 and the team merged with the Axiell staff. Axiell continues to sell and support [https://www.axiell.com/solutions/product/emu/ EMu].

The firm has two main products: the [https://www.axiell.com/solutions/product/emu/ Ke EMu Electronic Museum management system],[http://www.ipaustralia.com.au/applicant/ke-software-pty-ltd/trademarks/811519/ Intellectual Property in Australia, Trade Mark Details] a collections management system for museums; and [http://vitalrecords.axiell.com/ Vitalware Vital Records Management System].{{Cite web |url=https://www.kesoftware.com/ke-software/about-ke-software |title=KE Software Corporate Web Page kesoftware.com 'About' accessed 21/09/2015 |access-date=2015-09-20 |archive-date=2015-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150814000123/http://www.kesoftware.com/ke-software/about-ke-software |url-status=dead }} 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.{{Cite web |url=https://emu.kesoftware.com/support/documentation/the-database-engine/about-emu-s-database-engine/417-about-texpress |title=About EMu's Database Engine |access-date=2015-09-20 |archive-date=2017-08-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170808153513/https://emu.kesoftware.com/support/documentation/the-database-engine/about-emu-s-database-engine/417-about-texpress |url-status=dead }} Ke Emu is consistent with the Dublin Core / Darwin Core standards for archive and museum catalogue metadata.[https://www.idigbio.org/wiki/images/1/18/EmuBeka.pdf Rebekah Baquiran, 'KE Emu:Getting a Flightless Bird Off the Ground', Field Museum of Natural History] "The company’s clients include the three largest museums in the world.:{{Cite web |url=http://www.kesoftware.com/news-and-events/news/2088-ke-software-becomes-a-part-of-the-swedish-axiell-group |title=KE Software becomes a part of the Swedish Axiell Group, Published: Friday, 04 April 2014 |access-date=27 September 2016 |archive-date=1 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161001155939/http://www.kesoftware.com/news-and-events/news/2088-ke-software-becomes-a-part-of-the-swedish-axiell-group |url-status=dead }}

KE EMu is considered one of the more effective and purpose-designed museum cataloguing programs.Lord, B & Lord, G.D., 1997, The Manual of Museum Management, Rowman, Altamira Press, pp.72-73 particularly in the creation of public interfaces to museum catalogue data.The Museums Journal, Volume 106, Issues 7-12 Museums Association, 2006.Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, Volume 5, AltaMira Press, 2009, pp.152-7

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.[https://books.google.com/books?id=3jFgeRT_YW0C&dq=%22KE+Emu%22&pg=PA120 Lucy A. Tedd, J. A. Large Digital Libraries: Principles and Practice in a Global Environment, Walter de Gruyter, 2005 p.120] 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'".[http://www.nma.gov.au/research/understanding-museums/THart_MHallett_2011.html 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}}

KE EMu is used by a large number of museums and galleries around the world, including the Smithsonian Anthropological Collection,Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, Volume 48, Smithsonian Institution Press, 2004 American Museum of Natural History[http://images.library.amnh.org/hiddencollections/about/ Hidden Connections, Expeditionary Field Work at the American Museum of Natural History]Vancouver Art Gallery,Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship, By Joan M. Benedetti, Scarecrow Press, 1 Jan 2007 p.130 New York Botanical Garden,[http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/hcol/mtsc/NYBG_Best_Practices.doc New York Botanical Garden Virtual Herbarium Best Practices Guide] the University of Chicago Research Archives,[https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/ar/11-20/10-11/10_11_Research_Arch.pdf The Oriental Institute, Research Archives, University of Chicago] the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia,[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.150.9989&rep=rep1&type=pdf Fowler Williams and David McKnight, 'Through the Eyes of Louis Shotridge: Sharing Alaska’s Native Tlingit History' A Digital Archive Project at Penn] the National Museum of Australia, the Australian Museum,Annual Report, Australian Museum'', The Museum, 2002 Museum of Victoria,[http://www.lookatmedam.com.au/testimonials/museum-victoria Lookatmedam, Testimonials 'Museum Victoria', Media Equation Pty Ltd. ] University of Melbourne Archives,{{Cite web |url=http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/archives/farewell-to-christine-elias/ |title=FAREWELL TO CHRISTINE ELIAS June 22, 2015 by University of Melbourne Archives in UMA projects |access-date=September 20, 2015 |archive-date=October 18, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018043055/http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/archives/farewell-to-christine-elias/ |url-status=dead }} and the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.{{Cite web|url=http://natlib.govt.nz/researchers/replacing-tapuhi?search%5Bi%5D%5Bprimary_collection%5D=National+Library+Website&search%5Bpath%5D=items&search%5Btext%5D=tiaki|title=Replacing Tapuhi with Tiaki {{!}} Replacing TAPUHI with Tiaki - all systems go {{!}} Our services for researchers {{!}} National Library of New Zealand|website=natlib.govt.nz|access-date=2016-10-14}}

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"[http://www.idea.org/blog/2011/04/07/collection-management-systems-museums-and-the-web-2011/ Chris Fincham, head of U.S. operations, Collection management systems: Museums and the Web 2011 7-Apr-2011]

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,[http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/news/general/2009/05/21/birth-certificate-minutes-minister#sthash.Dfj77KVu.dpuf Corey Connelly, Birth certificate in minutes—minister Trinidad & Tobago Guardian Friday, May 22, 2009]{{Cite web |url=http://www.ttparliament.org/hansards/hs20041102.pdf |title=Government of Trinidad & Tobago, Hansard, SENATE Tuesday, November 02, 2004 |access-date=November 9, 2015 |archive-date=September 27, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160927222124/http://www.ttparliament.org/hansards/hs20041102.pdf |url-status=dead }} the Government of Anguilla, Ministry for Infrastructure, Communications, Utility and Housing,[http://www.gov.ai/documents/budget/2015%20Budget%20Final.pdf Government of Anguilla2015 estimates of recurrent revenue, expenditure and capital] and the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services.[http://raw.development01.com/health/mississippi_department_of_health.html Mississippi Department of Health Bureau of Public Health Statistics State of Mississippi, USA]{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{Cite web |url=http://www.its.ms.gov/procurement/rfps/3619rfp.doc |title=Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services, procurement |access-date=2015-11-09 |archive-date=2016-12-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221205630/http://www.its.ms.gov/procurement/rfps/3619rfp.doc |url-status=dead }}

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.[http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/19/1053196515387.html Jenny Sinclair, 'Tracking 16 million artefacts', The Sydney Morning Herald May 20 2003] The company has been working with Australian government agencies to digitize birth deaths and marriage registers in order to cross match identity data.[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/birth-death-records-prone-to-id-thefts/story-e6frgakx-1226157594537 Chris Griffith, 'Backlogs of birth, death records prone to ID thefts' The Australian, October 04, 2011] 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".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

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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160202172242/http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/collections-link/collections-management/spectrum/choose-a-cms] Collection Trust UK management software comparison chart.

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Category:Information technology management

Category:Content management systems

Category:Software companies of the United Kingdom

Category:Museum informatics

Category:Databases

Category:Museum companies

Category:Archival technology