Zero One is a design company committed to the non profit sector and to building community relationships with cultural and arts based organizations. We chose to concentrate on the museum community because of our love of learning, our admiration for the work that public institutions do for society and because we’re truly interested in participating in the enrichment of our community.

The Creation of Madrona

Madrona was a natural progression from Zero One’s ongoing design work. Based in Victoria, BC, we are western Canada’s only development firm that works exclusively for museums, galleries and related non profits. With over 13 years of experience, the designers at Zero One knew what was needed in the world of archive and collection management. Our clients told us what was missing in existing collections management systems—features such as adaptability, allowing each user to customize a collections management program to suit their specific needs, simplicity, allowing all collections professionals the same level of proficiency with the program and data portability.

Inspired by Our Clients

Our clients talked and we listened. Some needed metadata fields for ship’s records, some needed a way to track an artefact’s original and destination location. Every collection is unique, which is why Madrona was created with a system of custom made forms, which users can alter to best fit their organization. Need access to a lot of information? Install Madrona with a full selection of fields. Need a little? Install Madrona using simplified forms; either way, information will stay at your fingertips.

When will Madrona go live?

Madrona has been three years in development. Over 2009 and 2010, Zero One will complete strenuous, robust beta testing by museum professionals. However, we’ll still be leaving room to adapt to new technologies as they develop. As the first Canadian Open Source collections management program, Madrona holds a unique position in collections management software. We are proud to offer Madrona Community to the world in 2010 with Madrona Pro soon to follow.

Who created Madrona?

We can’t take all the credit. The development of Madrona continues to be an ongoing project, which has thus far involved countless hours of input from museum curators and archivists, discussions with community museum staff and a lot of research. But that’s not all. The future direction and development of Madrona will continue to be determined by our users.

We will encourage a base of developers to download the source code and alter it to suit their needs. These changes will be reflected in future versions of Madrona. An interactive Help guide will allow users to submit comments on specific aspects of the collections management system. An advisory council will help provide feedback and direction. We did it for you, and we’ll continue to use your input, helping to make Madrona more powerful, more user friendly and better suited to your specific collection needs.