Arches®

Open-source software platform freely available for cultural heritage organizations to independently deploy to manage cultural heritage data

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About

Goal

Arches is an open-source data management platform that is freely available for organizations worldwide to install, configure, and extend in accordance with their individual needs and without restrictions on its use. Due to the complex and varied nature of cultural heritage data, and to promote interoperability and sustainable data practices, Arches has been developed as a standards-based, comprehensive and flexible platform that supports a wide array of uses, including heritage inventory, heritage science, and vocabulary management, and involves a diverse international community of cultural heritage organizers and practitioners, knowledge organization specialists, software developers and technical service providers, and users.

Outcomes

  • Creation of a worldwide open-source community of cultural heritage organizations and practitioners, knowledge organization specialists, software developers and technical service providers, and users
  • Ongoing development of the open-source Arches Heritage Data Management Platform and related purpose-focused software applications, including for heritage inventory, heritage science, and vocabulary management, and associated software documentation
  • More than 130 known Arches implementations around the world to date, including to support statutory inventories at national, regional, and city levels, and recording endangered cultural heritage across vast regions of the Global South
  • More than 80 known Arches-related job opportunities internationally, including many related to new information technologies
  • Establishment of an Arches community governance framework representing stakeholders around the world
  • ·Establishment of an Arches Designated Fund to provide for long-term financial support for Arches software
  • A variety of related publications produced by Getty as well as Arches community members, including issues of Conservation Perspectives magazine focused on heritage inventories and heritage data management in 2013 and 2022

Arches Project Website

Visit the Arches project website for more information on this open-source platform.

Related

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    Developing an open-source software platform to share and interpret scientific and technical study data about artworks and cultural heritage

  2. Los Angeles Historic Resource Survey Project

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    New research leading to the first-ever comprehensive citywide survey of historic resources in Los Angeles

  3. Iraq Cultural Heritage Conservation Initiative

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    Training, resources, and a new web-based geospatial inventory system to rebuild Iraqi conservation and heritage management capacity

  4. Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities, Jordan

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    An Arabic-English, web-based national geospatial information system for Jordan's Department of Antiquities