Which version of Madrona do I need?

There are two versions of Madrona:

  • A powerful fully functioning, free collection management system – Madrona Community - easy to use for small museums, galleries and record keeping organizations
  • An even more powerful pro version – Madrona Pro - with enhanced features and greater integration for larger museums, libraries and archive institutions

Which one you choose will depend on your needs, your budget and the long term vision of your organization. See our feature list to compare the two versions.

Madrona Community

We like the idea of Community software. Helping small museums is part of our philosophy, which is why Zero One Design has offered a museum sponsorship program for the last ten years. Madrona Community, one of the first open source system of its kind in North America, will ensure that every museum has access to a robust collections management system, without the high cost usually associated with these programs.

Madrona Community is free, which means that you can download it here and start archiving your collection immediately. Madrona Community will be distributed through the GNU General Public License. This means that you will have the freedom to:

  • Use Madrona Community for free, now and in perpetuity
  • Share copies of Madrona with others that wish to use it
  • Obtain and change Madrona source code to better meet your archiving needs

Need help with an Madrona product? Our comprehensive help documents are built as Wiki documents, and will be available as an online, editable resource. The Madrona Help Documents are being written by museum professionals with years of experience using and testing collection management systems. As well, comprehensive screen casts will walk and talk you through the main areas of Madrona and help introduce the program. With an ever growing resource of tips and explanations, operation of Madrona is easy and straight forward.

If you would like extra help with Madrona, Zero One Design offers help and maintenance packages in various levels for all budgets.

A Few of the Many Features

Shared Calendars

Madrona includes a shared calendar that allows users to export files to programs such as Outlook. Multiple users can interact with Madrona, each with their own account and settings and their own history.

Integrated Data Entry

Madrona uses SPECTRUM, the international standard for collections management. By adhering to an international standard, Madrona makes archiving and data field entry straight forward and simple. Spectrum creates a procedure which defines best practices for various museum activities, including acquisition, inventory control, collections care and loans. With other collections management systems, information is held within the system, forcing users to work in several programs at once in order to track the movements of a museum object.  SPECTRUM is a powerful collections management schema and Madrona allows a user to access the full range of SPECTRUM or opt for simplified forms we’ve created with the most often used fields.

Trackable Acquisitions

Through use of integrated information holdings, Madrona will change the way you view your acquisition, its details and how you track its status. Collection information lives outside the boundaries of the program, allowing integration with shared calendars in Outlook and improved workflow management.

Simple Museum Management

Want to create a collection loan from within Madrona? Tag a painting as private or public? Export important dates to a shared calendar?—it’s all possible with Madrona. Keep everyone in your organization on the same page with Madrona’ integrated filing system, and make your myriad Excel spreadsheets a thing of the past. Madrona was built this way in order to function not only as a collections management system but also a museum management system.

International Specifications

Madrona is built entirely on international specifications and is completely scalable and customizable—perfect for a small museums with a limited collection but also ideal for the larger museum with a large numbers of artefacts and specimens.

Madrona uses SPECTRUM, a UK and international standard specification, for its naming conventions. Spectrum is used by museums and archiving institutions around the world, including the British Museum. More flexible and detailed than other systems, Spectrum allows for detailed data field entry for a wide variety of collections.  Museums differ - some need fields for earth patches and some need ships records, Madrona offers flexibility for all museums.

Portable Data

The data in Madrona—your data—is entirely portable. There are no restrictions on exporting and importing your important collection information. The program is robust and can easily work with hundreds of items or millions of items. If you are a Canadian user, you Madrona will also integrate with Artefacts Canada, Canada’s national museum database.