Open Source Collaboration: New Models for Technology Development in the Museum Community

With the availability and maturation of open source technologies, museums are increasingly using existing open source tools for technology development. However, in most cases, museums are still developing customized applications and tools in isolation. Considerable cost and effort is invested in solving the same challenge repeatedly at many different institutions. Institutions share information, but the collaborative development of open source tools and applications is still relatively unusual. We believe there is a better way, and recent projects in the museum field point to a new development model. What are the possibilities for collaborative open source development in the museum field? We explore current museum projects and examples from other fields, including higher education and the arts.