Cultural Institutions: Where dinosaurs roam, and so do outdated booking systems

Cultural institutions like museums, galleries, and zoos are the superheroes of education, shaping the minds of the young and impressionable. They’ve got reputations built on years of school trips, class visits, and the occasional kid losing their lunch near the T-Rex exhibit. But here’s the plot twist: many of these institutions are stuck using admin tools that are as ancient as the fossils they display.

It’s not really their fault. The GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sector often prioritises cool new exhibits and fancy online ticketing systems over upgrading their clunky old admin tools. While millions are spent on making visitors say “Wow!” at immersive experiences, the poor souls in the back office are wrestling with systems that are about as user-friendly as a porcupine in a balloon factory.

Imagine trying to run a smooth operation with downloadable PDFs as ‘advanced tech’ for your excursion info and not quite fit-for-purpose ticketing systems to make your life a tad more unbearable. In contrast, other industries are having a digital revolution party with tools like TripAdvisor, OpenTable, Uber, Calendly, Notion, Shopify, Xero, and Slack. Meanwhile, the GLAM sector is still figuring out how to send an email without accidentally triggering a meltdown.

In many cases, school bookings and group visits are the bread and butter for these cultural havens. Yet, many are stuck in a labyrinth of legacy systems and manual processes. Here’s a peek into their world of woe:

Resource Drain: Staff are busy inputting data manually, leaving little time for the fun stuff like running tours or developing new educational programs. It’s like having a superhero team spend all their time doing paperwork instead of saving the day.

Inefficiency: The booking process is a mess of errors, double bookings, and missed opportunities—a huge burden on an already overworked team.

Limited Scalability: As these institutions grow, their outdated systems become a roadblock. They can’t handle the increased booking volume, which means they miss out on serving larger audiences.

Financial Constraints: Inefficiencies eat into the bottom line. Missed bookings and high administrative overheads are like a slow leak in a boat – eventually, it’s going to sink.

Empathy: The teachers booking these trips have their own struggles. On average, a teacher takes six weeks to book an excursion - transport, risk assessments, permission slips, I could go on. And they go on about four excursions a year. That’s a lot of time spent battling with bad admin when they are supposed to be raising our children.

“It’s not perfect, but it works” is no longer good enough. Our cultural institutions, teachers, and students deserve better. It’s time to upgrade the systems, reduce the headaches, and ensure that our collective heritage is preserved and shared with future generations in a way that’s as seamless as a penguin’s slide.

So, let’s give these cultural institutions the tools they need to thrive. After all, they’re already doing the hard part—making learning fun. The least we can do is make their administrative tasks a bit less like an archaeological dig.