Institution Server
The creative and cultural industries are made up of thousands of organisations throughout the UK. Working effectively across these sectors requires concise information about what the organisations are called and where they are, as it is becoming increasingly important to avoid duplicating information.
The MLA Institution Server was developed as an online service to meet the needs of websites such as Cornucopia and the Peoples Network Discover Service. The next phase of development will be to establish a next-generation version of the Institution Server, capable of supporting the information needs of a wider range of online services.
The concept behind the Institution Server is quite simple: it will house a basic record for every organisation across libraries, archives and museums, and will provide Persistent Unique Identifiers attached to each one. Other services will be able to access this database to add to or improve their own organisational data. Essentially, it will be a collective address book for the cultural sector.
As with everything the Collections Trust does, the development of the Institution Server will be based on existing services and industry standards. The data will be made publicly available for anyone to use on a non-commercial basis.
