museumOS
The operating system for modern museums.
Collections, documentation, operations and knowledge in one platform - created by a museum, for museums of every size.
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We built a museum. Then we discovered a bigger problem.
The Video Games Museum began as a private collection and grew into a heritage institution. Preserving the collection turned out to be the easy part - managing it was not.
Existing museum software was too expensive, too complicated, or built for institutions many times our size. So instead of reshaping the museum around the software, we built software that adapts to museums.
We didn't build software for museums. We built a museum first.
Museums run on tools that don't speak to each other.
Fragmented information
The object lives in one system, its location in a spreadsheet, its photographs in a drive.
Outdated systems
Databases designed decades ago, still holding the collection hostage.
Enterprise pricing
Licences priced for national institutions, quoted to museums with three staff.
No workflow
Cataloguing, condition checks and loans handled by email and memory.
Rigid data models
Fixed field lists that never fit the medium the museum actually collects.
Inaccessible knowledge
Years of documentation that no one outside the back office can search.
One platform for the collection and the institution around it.
museumOS covers what a collections database does - and then keeps going into the work that actually fills a museum's day.
Collections management
Objects, artworks, consoles, games, publications, multimedia and archival material in one catalogue.
Digital documentation
Metadata, images, condition reports and documentation history attached to every record.
Locations & movement
Building, room and shelf - with the history of every move from store to display to loan.
Exhibitions & research
Select objects, build narratives, and answer research requests from the same records.
Knowledge platform
Turn cataloguing work into searchable institutional knowledge instead of private notes.
Future-ready architecture
Scales with the collection, opens up through integrations, and exports on open standards.
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One object model. Every medium's own truth.
A painting, a costume, a machine, a document and a recording are not the same thing - so they don't share one flat field list.
Fine art
Medium · support · dimensions · signatureObjects & artefacts
Technique · maker · period · dimensionsTechnology & machines
Manufacturer · model · serial · working stateTextiles & costume
Fibre · construction · size · wearArchives & print
Format · extent · edition · issueAudiovisual
Carrier · duration · playback formatThe museum's whole day, in the same system.
The work no collections database touches - the front desk, the shop, the stores, the staff, the building, the programme and everyone the museum corresponds with.
Shop inventory
Stock levels, suppliers, reorder points and sales per line.
Supplies store
Consumables inventory - packing, conservation and cleaning materials, with low-stock alerts.
Press & partners
Contacts and correspondence with press, other museums, sponsors and institutions, logged against the organisation.
Staff
Rotas, leave requests and shift swaps.
Maintenance
Repairs raised, assigned, dated and closed.
Schools
Visit requests, contact lists and camps.
Events
Programme calendar, capacity and bookings.
Buildings
Rooms, museum map and daily open-up checks.
Any institution that holds a collection.
Museums
From volunteer-run local museums to national institutions with multiple buildings.
Universities
Teaching collections, departmental archives and research material.
Archives
Documents, ephemera and series with their own description rules.
Libraries
Special collections that a library catalogue was never designed to hold.
Private collections
Serious collectors who need provenance, condition and valuation history.
Foundations & researchers
Cultural foundations and scholars who need to query a collection properly.
The Video Games Museum, Greece.
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From one museum's system to shared cultural infrastructure.
Internal museum system
Built and hardened inside the Video Games Museum's daily operation.
Platform
Multi-institution architecture, configurable data models, onboarding.
External adoption
Museums, archives and university collections running on museumOS.
Cultural heritage ecosystem
Shared standards, open interchange, and collections that can be queried together.
See museumOS with your own collection in mind.
Tell us what you hold and how you work today. We'll walk you through the platform and what a move would look like.