Unified knowledge-based content management for digital archives in museums

Purpose - This paper sets out to present a new model to avoid the content silo trap, satisfy the knowledge management requirement and support the long-term perspective of developing academic, exhibition, and education applications among various domains for museums. Design/methodology/approach - This paper presents a unified knowledge-based content management (UKCM) model, which comprises the unified knowledge content processes, multi-layer reusable knowledge content structures and an integrated knowledge-based content management system to solve the content silo trap problem. The extended entity-relationship (EER) conceptual model is applied to design a global view of the integrated knowledge system and completely represent multi-layer reusable knowledge content structures for the spectrum of various knowledge assets for all domains and applications in a museum. Findings - A practical case of a large-scale digital archives project that includes various domains of a natural science museum has been successfully implemented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed model. Originality/value - This paper integrates content management and knowledge management. Digital archives programs in museums can apply the model presented in this study to satisfy the knowledge management requirement and support the long-term perspective of developing academic, exhibition, and education applications among various domains.