Jason Bengtson
Assistant Director Library IT Services
Kansas State University
Beginning in 2016, Kansas State University (KSU) Libraries and the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art embarked on a collaborative project to build a replacement for the museum’s commercial art-display web application. The museum provided salary support, aesthetic input, and assistance with access to (as well as structural insight into) their main database, while KSU Libraries provided the application development team and technical systems support. The resulting new application, which is rapidly approaching an alpha stage, provides a graphically pleasing, user-friendly interface sitting on top of a document database (rather than a traditional relational database) in order to deliver extraordinary flexibility in a compelling package. Featuring visually exciting modules, such as the gallery views, and the “virtual stroll,” the new application epitomizes what is possible through constructive collaboration and collective innovation.