Background
What Moliri is and who it is for
Moliri is the database for collections, conservation, exhibitions and loans in the museum: one database instead of many lists. It runs in the browser, and each institution has its own instance.
Many people work on an object, from documentation through conservation to loans. In Moliri they work on the same data:
| Who | What happens in Moliri |
|---|---|
| Documentation | Recording the holdings, clarifying authority data, delivering to the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (DDB) |
| Conservation | Recording condition, dimensions, images and treatments on the same object, comparing and marking up images |
| Registrars, loans | Taking over lenders’ lists, keeping track of loan status, generating loan agreements and object lists from Word templates |
| Curators | Making a selection, earmarking objects, entering texts, viewing the selection as a gallery |
| Exhibition architecture, design | Filling walls, floor plans and showcases in the wall planner, with the dimensions from the records |
| Technical staff, transport, insurance | Lists and dates from the calendar, kanban and Excel export |
The exhibition is one use case among several. Moliri just as well keeps the holdings, maintains authority data and exports to standards. Whether it runs alongside an existing collection database or replaces it is for the institution to decide.
Assumptions behind Moliri
One object, one record. An object can be in the holdings, in an exhibition and in a loan request at the same time and still remains one record. Dimensions, images and history exist only once. What applies only to the exhibition, such as the exhibition title or the loan status, is entered only there. See Objects in several projects .
Every institution records differently. There is no fixed list of fields. Which fields exist, what they are called, which field type they have and on which layouts (input forms) they appear is set up for each instance. Process templates and metadata standards help you get started, but someone still has to do the setup. See Data model .
Saving always works. The institution sets rules, such as mandatory fields or unique inventory numbers. If a value breaks a rule, Moliri saves it anyway and marks it. That way you can still record data shortly before the opening, and the gaps remain easy to find.
What follows from this
Because the data model is set up per instance, many questions in this handbook have two answers: one about the program and one about how your own instance is set up. “Why can’t I enter anything here?” is rarely a bug in the program. Usually there is a permission or a field configuration behind it. See How permissions add up .
Because everyone works on the same record, changes can be traced. Every change goes into the history with the person, the time and the previous value. Individual changes can be undone, and so can an entire import or an entire bulk edit.
Because objects are in several projects, Delete object only applies to the project you are working in: the object goes to the trash there and stays unchanged in the other projects. See Delete an object .
Technical requirements
Moliri runs in current versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Safari, without installation. You work on a desktop computer or on an iPad. The interface is available in German, English, Spanish, French, Greek, Japanese and Ukrainian.
The server takes over the computationally heavy parts, such as previews for multi-page TIFF, PDF, AVIF, HEIC and camera raw files, and zoom levels for large images. This makes it possible to manage formats that a browser cannot display on its own.
Help
Moliri is under continuous development. Support is available by email at [email protected] , by telephone and through the chat, which each person switches on in their own user profile. A considerable part of what this handbook describes grew out of requests from users.