Case Study: Royal Ontario Museum unifies 15 collections databases with Gallery Systems' TMS

Royal Ontario Museum consolidates 15 databases with Gallery Systems

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Canada's largest museum, faced the challenge of managing its vast and diverse natural history collection across 15 separate and outdated databases. This fragmentation led to inefficiencies, hindered cross-departmental communication, and risked data loss as software support ended. To harmonize its workflows, the museum partnered with vendor Gallery Systems to implement a unified collections management system, The Museum System (TMS).

Gallery Systems worked with the ROM on a detailed five-year migration plan, consolidating the 15 databases into TMS. The solution included custom modifications to support scientific cataloguing and the integration of eMuseum online software. This resulted in the entire collection being managed in one place for the first time in the museum's history, greatly improving data consistency, record linking, and public access to the collections online.

Royal Ontario Museum