KE EMu
Other Features
EMu has many other features, some of which are detailed below:
EMu Supports Standards
EMu has been designed to adhere to all of the standards that matter to museums.
Collection management needs are met by EMu’s compliance with SPECTRUM (Version 2), a guide to good practice for museum documentation with procedures for documenting objects and the processes they undergo.
Resource discovery is facilitated by EMu’s adherence to the Dublin Core (Version 1.2).
EMu’s XML-based import and export capabilities maximise data interchange flexibility and help to future-proof your system.
Not only can EMu store any multimedia resource, it has the ability to directly show/play most of the common image, video and audio formats, including:
- Audio : .MID, .RMI, .WAV
- Image : .BMP, .CMS, .DXF, .EPS, .GIF, .ICO, .JPEG, .JPG, .PCD, .PCX, .PNG, .RES, .SCM, .TGA, .TIF, .TIFF, .WMF
- Video : .AVI, .MOV
Other multimedia formats are handled by external viewing applications installed on a client computer.
For terminology control, there is EMu’s Z39.19 compliant Thesaurus module, with specific extensions for common thesauri such as the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), United List of Artist Names (ULAN) and many other industry-specific thesauri.
EMu web support includes a SOAP interface.
For natural history collections, EMu supports the Darwin Core metadata standard Version 1.2 and Version 1.3, with specific extensions for the OBIS and MaNIS standards.
Publishing Natural History collections can be achieved using EMu’s built-in DiGIR-compliant interface, enabling connection to museum portals such as GBIF, OBIS, MaNIS, ORNIS and HerpNet, as well as KE’s own museum portal.
And not only do we support museum standards, we’re often at the forefront of their development. With and through our clients, we are helping to develop tomorrow’s standards, ensuring EMu will meet your future goals.
Reporting Is Easy
EMu’s comprehensive reporting sub-system allows any information to be drawn from any set of records for reporting purposes.
EMu is packaged with a suite of more than one hundred pre-defined reports. It also comes with a series of tools to generate new and customised reports in numerous formats using a wide range of report writers, including XML, Crystal Reports, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Pre-Defined Reports
EMu provides a wide range of pre-defined reports in many formats, including XML (using XSLT stylesheets), Crystal Report Writer, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint. Below are samples of some of those reports.
Crystal Reports
Many of EMu’s pre-defined reports have been designed using Crystal Report Writer. When a Crystal Report is run, the results are viewed in the Crystal viewer:
Crystal Viewer showing a set of multimedia resources.
From within the Crystal Report Viewer there are many options available: you can save or print the report, email it or send it to another application such as Microsoft Word or Excel.
The report is now in Microsoft Word.
PowerPoint
It is also possible to report directly to Microsoft PowerPoint. This predefined report automatically creates a series of slides for your selected records, as well as Notes pages.
PowerPoint report showing one of the created slides
And the Notes page generated for that slide.
Object Locator
The Object Locator is an online (Internet or Intranet) mapping utility designed for pin-pointing the location of objects in your collection on floor and grounds plans. It is a Java Applet running in a web page and can be launched as a report from within EMu, or from within EMu's web interface.
The Object locator allows you to quickly and easily locate your objects on a map; plan the use of exhibition floor spaces; design pre-configured tours for visitors; and develop and use Disaster Recovery Plans.
Floor plan showing several objects, one of which has been highlighted.
Locality Maps
It is also possible to map the collection locality of a series of specimens by plotting details on to a map of the world. With a large enough set of specimens, this can provide a distribution map for various species that have been collected.
Map showing the distribution of various species
of Lampsilis across North America.
The map is interactive and allows users to zoom in and out, pan around and request information on individual points.
Different species are shown in different colours, making it easy to compare the distribution of multiple species.
Creating New Reports
Creating a new report is a simple matter of selecting fields, and designing the report using a standard report writing tool, such as Crystal Reports. You can add sorting criteria and other options and can then save that report to EMu, granting access to it to other users or groups of users if desired.
Sophisticated reports can be designed using Crystal Report Writer’s user friendly interface, which provides complete control over the layout of the report, including fonts, styles, sizes, etc., the data to be included in the report (subject to your own security level and subsequently to the privilege level of the other users who use the report) and the ordering of presentation.
Exporting Data From EMu
EMu’s reporting system also supports the export of data in a broad range of formats, including tab and comma delimited and XML (eXtensible Markup Language).
iMu
 KE Software's iMu is the next generation in guided tours: a personalised guided tour, iMu combines the freedom of a self-guided tour with the convenience of a personal guide.
iMu is fully integrated with EMu and draws its content for a tour directly out of your existing EMu collection. Onsite or off, visitors browse your EMu collection on the web, choosing the objects they want to see. iMu determines the best viewing sequence and shortest path from one selected object to the next and builds an audio / video tour for download to a digital media player (currently an iPod). The downloaded podcast includes directions for getting from one object to the next and narratives for each object or exhibit. Onsite the visitor is guided on their own personal tour of your collection, with narratives presented at each destination.
iMu revolutionises the audio tour of a collection, leaving behind the limitations of the old technology. Depending on the capabilities of a visitor's digital media player the audio tour is enhanced with a video display of a map and pointers to the next exhibit. And at the destination, the narrative can include a multimedia presentation.
A visitor's virtual experience of browsing your collection online is brought into the real space of your institution. Gone are the days of the pre-determined tour. Your visitors choose what they want to see, and travel at their own pace, guided by iMu and informed by your narratives.
Potentially, no two tours will ever be the same.
Online Help
KE EMu is supplied with a comprehensive, context sensitive help system, providing you with relevant information when you need it.
The online help provides clear instructions on how to complete many operations and is littered with flow-charts to help explain complex processes:
Help screen showing a flow chart for the pre-acquisition process.
You can even customise the help system with the use of HTML authoring software.
The help system also supports the ‘What’s This?’ facility, which allows you to click on a field and receive context sensitive help specific to that field.
Wireless Input (Wifi)
 MVWISE [1] is a Wireless Input System for EMu which enables collection staff to view and update data in EMu using portable hand-held computers such as PDAs. With MVWISE museum professionals can carry EMu away from their desk and into their storerooms.
MVWISE can be customised to suit various workflows and assists users to carry out specific data entry tasks by guiding them through the process of capturing the data. Step-by-step instructions can be issued along the way. Users see only the data they need in order to carry out the task in hand.
MVWISE screen showing object information and image of a rocket model.
MVWISE can be configured to facilitate any remote search or data entry requirement. One of its most common applications is for barcoded internal location tracking. MVWISE makes location tracking simple and efficient, allowing EMu data to be updated directly by staff as they work with the collection.
Support For Massive Collections
EMu has been designed to support high speed retrieval from massive collections and this is reflected in the existing client-base. Many EMu clients manage EMu record sets of many millions of records. EMu clients include the three largest museums in the world – the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), the American Museum of Natural History and the British Natural History Museum.
Security
EMu’s security model controls access to information at the system, module, tab, record and field level. It also controls access to processes, reports, lists and groups. EMu’s security system is completely configurable on-site.
Access to EMu requires the user to enter a User Id and password, which are authenticated using the server operating system’s user security facilities. On successful start-up, EMu determines which modules a user can access. On accessing a module, EMu determines which aspects of the module and which processes relating to the module the user can access and presents the module appropriately.
The security profile for a user is managed by the EMu administrator, through the EMu application itself. The administrator can set all privileges for a user or group of users.
Audit Trails
All operations performed on records, including insertion, editing, deletion, querying and viewing, can be fully audited. Audit details include the date, time, username, operation type, record type and key number for all database actions. Additionally, the audit trail can record new and/or modified data.
Reliability
EMu can perform real time mirroring of all critical databases and transactions to a backup server. Users may quickly switch to the backup server in the event of hardware or operating system failure. Development, test, training and production environments are also maintained in parallel to provide a controlled development cycle in a simulated production environment.
More Information
To contact us for more information about KE EMu, please email
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. Telephone contact details can be found on the Contact page.
Instructions for downloading the EMu Help (which includes screen shots and
demonstrations, and comprehensive details about EMu functionality) can be found under More Information.
[1]
MVWISE is a product of Museum Victoria marketed
by KE under agreement.
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About EMu 
