How we customise our product for each museum in Australia
belong.dev Team
Product & Engineering
Museums already use digital tools to manage collections and share information with visitors, and QR codes are being used in Australian museums to connect visitors with additional information about objects and displays. The question for us was how to make that experience simple for different museums while giving each one its own digital space. That is where belong.dev comes in.
One platform, a space for each museum
belong.dev supports multiple museum organisations on the same platform, with each organisation having its own unique domain and content. This gives each museum its own digital space for managing and presenting its content. CollectionSpace sits underneath our museum content management system and provides the collections management foundation. It is an established open-source platform built for museums and other collecting organisations, with an API that allows other applications and services to work with the system. We build the experience around that foundation rather than creating a separate system for every museum.
Connecting an object to its story
One of the ways belong.dev does this is through QR codes. A museum administrator can generate a QR code, print it and attach it to an item, with each code having its own unique URL within the museum's belong.dev space. When a visitor scans the code, the relevant page opens in their browser, where the museum can provide information about the object using rich text. This creates a simple connection between a physical item and its digital information, while museum staff can manage the codes and content from their side.
This is how we approach customisation at belong.dev. The underlying platform stays consistent, while each museum gets its own organisation, domain, content and QR-linked pages. Rather than creating a completely separate application for every museum, we give each organisation its own digital space within the same platform.
Ready to enhance your museum's visitor engagement?
Try Belong for your museum today. Set up your collection and print your first dynamic QR code in minutes.