POMUI. The web portal of Italian university museums

Abstract

In recent years Italian university museums have faced difficult times as funding has become difficult and usage has declined. The situation was degenerating into a crisis. A solution was needed. How could the isolated, individual museums be re-vitalized into a sustainable, useful, accessible, cooperative group? The answer was to build a digital gateway: a computer web portal through which teachers, students, academics and the general public can visit the individual collections digitally, while the curators are free to concentrate on preservation, cataloguing, research and display. The web portal was developed at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia during a course in computer cataloguing for the valorization of cultural heritage. It is called POMUI (POrtal MUseums Italian). The use of POMUI will help preserve Italian heritage, promote university museum and contribute to social networking.