I'm going to be working with an organization the help them organize and catalogue some of their historical documents and items. We're looking for something that will allow the item to be:
Do you all have any suggestions for a nice inexpensive software? There are a lot of items, like from small tokens to books to a few paintings.
We're really trying to start a good in house program to realize what exactly we have before figuring out what needs to be sent off to be housed in better conditions and what can be kept on site.
DO you have any suggestions? We can't really afford Museum quality software, so on the less expensive area is prefered.
Thank you in advance!
First off, feel free to join us in /r/museumpros!
Now, to your question. One of the main things is that collections management software is not cheap stuff. The licenses can get pricey. For paid software, for what you are asking, I prefer PastPerfect. It is one of the cheaper ones that is used by many small history institutions. It's still going to run you around $1000, give or take.
However, I just came from a conference where some open source collections management software was featured. Take a look at this software, and see if it is what you need. The nicest thing about it is that it is free, and being open source you can modify it any way you like (with a programmer to assist.)
Let me know if you have any more questions!
Do you have the know-how to set up an open source software on your own server? There are free/open source softwares that can do these sorts of things but they do require some skill and time investment.
Seconding PastPerfect; three of the museums I've worked in have used this software and it's by far my preference. It's quite easy to learn, it looks good, and it can perform a lot of other functions in addition to the ones you've described, so if you have the cash, I'd consider it.
Otherwise, there are lots of open source software options available. I've used AdLib and it was pretty OK (it's the one that the collections management prof during my Museum Studies master's program seemed to prefer from among the open source programs). It would be worth it to spend a bit of time trying out a few of those options before you settle on one, I imagine.
Good luck!