January 31, 2019-- Vancouver, BC. Lucidea is the parent company to a full portfolio of museums and archives collections management solutions, including Argus, ArgusEssentia, CuadraSTAR SKCA, Eloquent Archives, ArchivEra and ArchivEssentia.
"With Argus, the public art project managers have—for the first time—a holistic view of the collection at their fingertips. This allows them to continue building the collection out in a way that is consistent with the overall curatorial vision."
In order to compile key information about museum collections management software, the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) developed a vendor profile survey with the assistance of an advisory group of museum professionals. Recently released survey results indicate that Lucidea is the only North America-based (non-Open Source) Web and SaaS solutions provider to make it to the top of the list, with Argus—its highly customizable, purpose-built solution, expertly designed to offer comprehensive collections management capabilities and enable heritage institutions to avoid the expense and complexity of open source solutions.
When Lucidea—with its long history and focus on delivering powerful collections management solutions to galleries, libraries, archives and museums—acquired Argus, they completely redesigned and rebuilt "classic" Argus on their rock-solid LucideaCore platform, offering a Web-based solution with vendor hosting (SaaS) that has been enthusiastically embraced by existing clients and new clients ever since.
Per Shannon Parker, Curator of Collections at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, "When we needed a new collections management system we went through a rigorous procurement process with a number of different applicants, and we scored every element; Argus came out on top every time, they had great references, offered capabilities that would make both gallery staff and IT happy, and were well within budget."
Dr. Alex Barker, Director, Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri, had this to say: "Argus is now integral to what each staff member does on a daily basis, and is also bulletproof for the occasional user; people can play around with it to do things that suit their own workflow …the beauty is that it is neither simple nor complex—it's what you choose to do with it. We can shape it to our needs instead of making new investments in order to stay current."
At the Oregon Arts Commission, Percent for Art Registrar & Research Specialist Eleanor Sandys noted that "With Argus, the public art project managers have—for the first time—a holistic view of the collection at their fingertips. This allows them to continue building the collection out in a way that is consistent with the overall curatorial vision."
The latest development with Argus is the recent introduction of its sibling, ArgusEssentia, designed especially to deliver the essentials of collections management to smaller museums at a price they can afford.
Lucidea is delighted to have risen to the top of CHIN's survey, based on the input of museum professionals who value the power, innovations and finesse of the Argus solution — thoughtfully built to fulfil the needs of today's museums and galleries, and to anticipate tomorrow's.
About Lucidea
Lucidea is the industry leading developer of a full portfolio of museums and archives collections management solutions, plus library automation, and knowledge management applications. Their products for museums and archives include Argus, ArgusEssentia, CuadraSTAR SKCA, Eloquent Archives, ArchivEra and ArchivEssentia; other solutions include Inmagic Presto, DB/TextWorks and GeniePlus, SydneyEnterprise, LawPort, and LookUp Precision.
