Optional extras: 5 features most requested by arts and heritage organisations

15th January 2025

Many users know that ResourceSpace helps to organise, access, preserve, share and manage digital media straight out-of-the-box. In this mini-series, we're taking a closer look at some of the most popular additional tools - all free to use and straightforward to set up. In this edition: 5 ResourceSpace features favoured by arts and heritage organisations.

1. Collection Management System integration 

ResourceSpace integrates with collection management systems including The Museum System (TMS), MuseumPlus and EMu. Using these integrations, relevant object data from your collection can be automatically pulled through to ResourceSpace, enabling things to flow seamlessly between your collection data and media library.

2. Embedded metadata

A lot of the time, photographers and media managers will already be working with embedded metadata such as IPTC or Exif data. ResourceSpace can be configured to import and export any of your embedded metadata, saving lots of time and hassle and helping preserve your original content exactly the way you need it. See also our Complete guide to metadata

3. IIIF 

IIIF is a set of rules and standards that allow museums and other cultural institutions to easily share their digital collections online in a way that’s accessible to all. Because of its advanced zooming capabilities, IIIF is particularly useful for viewing art and artifacts such as paintings, maps and manuscripts. Samples can be found here.

4. Zoom & XL thumbnails

Previews can be enhanced with zoom using the Image preview zoom plugin. With the plugin enabled, when hovering over the preview, in the top-left corner you'll also have icons for zooming in/ out, for centering the image and for viewing fullscreen. There’s also the option to show extra large thumbnails on the search results page - useful if you have a set of similar images to review, or need to check other visual details.

5. Auto-assign

Sometimes the roles for approving and publishing uploaded content can be really specific. The Auto-assign plugin can help: resource requests can be automatically assigned to a specific user for approval, based on a metadata field value mapping. So, for example, requests for a resource labelled as ‘archive material’ could be automatically assigned to your Archivist to approve it for download.

If you’re a customer and would like help setting up any of these features or have any questions, just get in touch with our Customer Success team.