Axiell, in addition to its library automation products, has a major presence in the technologies for museums and other cultural institutions. Through an ongoing series of acquisitions, Axiell has become more diversified in the types of products it offers and in the geographic regions it serves. Axiell has recently acquired CultureConnect to further expand its technology offerings for the museum and cultural institution sector.
Axiell's library business is concentrated in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, though it has also recently expanded into other European countries with its new Quria library services platform for public libraries. In March of this year, Axiell announced a partnership with Demco to market and support Quria in the United States.
The September 2020 acquisition of New York-based CultureConnect brings to Axiell new technologies for the creation of sophisticated digital experiences for museums and cultural institutions. This acquisition builds on partnership announced in June 2019 to create interoperability among their respective platforms. CultureConnect's products enable organizations to create engaging online exhibits, virtual programs, mobile museum guides, mobile kiosks, games, and other interactive interfaces delivered through mobile devices and touchscreens. CultureConnect enables the organization to create content in a single platform and publish it, with built-in data and analytics, to many different interfaces or applications.
CultureConnect was founded in March 2013 by Samantha Diamond and Monika Smyczek. The organization received early rounds of funding from the New Orleans-based Idea Village and through the New Orleans Startup Fund. Samantha Diamond serves as the CEO of CultureConnect.
The company's involvement with museums and archives has a more global footprint. Since 2013 Axiell has made a number of business acquisitions to further expand the products it developedfor the museum and archives sector. These acquisitions build on the products Axiell had created for this sector, such as CALM and Arena. These acquisitions include:
- Adlib (March 2013): based in The Netherlands; its products for libraries, museums, and archives were implemented in many global regions.
- Selago Design (October 2013): based in Canada; its core product Mimsy XG was implemented mostly by museums in the Canada and the United States, though it also had clients in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Asia.
- KE Software (April 2014): based in Australia; its product EMu has been implemented by some of the largest museums in the world.
- Mobydoc (May 2016): based in France, serving more than 1,200 museums in France.
- Musoft (August 2020): based in Prague, serves museums and cultural organizations in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.
- CultureConnect (September 2020).
In another major advancement in this sector, Axiell announced that a suite of its products has been selected by Library of Congress to manage its audiovisual materials. The collections involved are those held at its Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation, the American Folklife Center, and the Veterans History Project. The Packard Campus is a worldclass facility for the collection and preservation of motion pictures, broadcast television and radio, recorded sound, as well as many other types of audiovisual materials. The products selected include Axiell Collections and Axiell Flow for the management of materials and Axiell Arena for access to the collections.
