Project Mus.Cat: A CMS open-source application

Around 98% of museums in Europe are defined as small and medium-size institutions due to their limited human and economic resources. Those memory institutions are getting real difficulties in becoming digital, in other words using ICT applications. In this context, Project Mus.Cat (http://oliba.uoc.edu/ muscat), which is funded by the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia, is attempting to address some of these problems by developing museum templates for open-source content management systems (CMSs) such as Joomla 1.5!. Such templates downloaded online allow small and medium size institutions create high quality portals for content dissemination in internet with low economic investment and computer expertise. Curators could easily manage and update contents, include new functionalities, personalise and scale portals and favour the introduction of Web 2.0 applications. Group Òliba is currently developing those open-source templates for Catalan museums and cultural associations, but they will be available online free for any institution. We have already applied Joomla 1.5! to other personalised projects such as Museum of Lleida (http://www.museudelleida.cat), Museum of History of Catalan Immigration (http://www.mhic.net) or Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica (http://www.icac.net) with quite successful results in terms of self-management, collaborative work and widespread dissemination. Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.