Open MOV screen shot

Vancouverites can now broaden their understanding of Vancouver history with the click of a mouse, thanks to the Museum of Vancouver’s newly launched digital collections database.

Using OpenMOV from the Museum of Vancouver’s website, users around the globe can now access information about the museum’s more than 62,000 items, with nearly 10,000 entries currently accompanied by digital images.

Woodwards toothpaste

“With open MOV, we were able to update the old electronic database while opening the collection to the public. OpenMOV allows the public virtual access to objects when they are not on display,” explains Wendy Nichols, the MOV’s Curator of Collections. “Increasingly, museums are finding that allowing their communities to access the collections digitally not only connects people to history, but also stimulates museum going.”

The digital database was developed with support from the Museums Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage. OpenMOV was custom‐made for MOV using Drupal open source content management system by Vancouver based firm Fuse Interactive.

OpenMOV Screenshot

MOV will continue to both refine current artifact information and increase the number of objects accompanied by digital images. The creation of digital images has been made possible in part by the BC History Digitization Project through the Irving K. Barber Centre at UBC. The project has also supported digitizing all material in the BC First Nations ethnology collection over the last two years.

The digital collection metaphorically throws the doors open to MOV’s backroom shelves. With information now easily accessible online, researchers can gain information (and images) from the collection either at home or school.

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