Post No. 8 ARHCON

For the final post for this project I will discuss Archon, another open source software for archival collections management built and administered by the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. The website for Archon can be found at http://www.archon.org/

It may seem odd to have the final post focus on another archival management software but Archon is really a part of the future of Archivists’ Toolkit. In August both AT and Archon announced that they would be merging. The effort was suggested by the Mellon Foundation which provided the initial funding for the development for both programs.

There are some significant similarities between the two programs-In addition to both being funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation. Like Archivists’ Toolkit Archon was first released in 2006. Both are designed to implement EAD finding aids onto the web, both websites offer a “sandbox” for prospective users to explore the program before downloading.

The differences can be subtle and it may seem that both systems are practically identical but if one looks, for example, at the types of back end databases both use you begin to see the difference between the two programs. Whereas AT requires MySQL 5.0 (with the InnoDB storage engine), MS SQL Server 2005 (or higher) or Oracle 10g as a back end database Archon is designed to operate on a web server with PHP 5.0 or higher, MySQL version 5.0 and higher or MS SQL Server 7 and 2000 or a blank database.

The project combining the two programs is only in the early states. As mentioned on the Archivists’ Toolkit website the purpose of the merger is to combine “the best features of the Archivists’ Toolkit and Archon into a single hybrid application that will support description, collection management, and access of archival materials.”

But it could be some time before a new program is released. Activity on listservs such as ATUG-L indicate that the project is only in the very early stages. Regardless of when the new program is released it is clear to this student that given the track record of the designers of both Archivists’ Toolkit and Archon, whatever program that will emerge will probably be very good.


(n.d.). Retrieved December 3, 2009, from Archon: http://www.archivists.org/