Features
From the first acquisition note to the published exhibition, Museumica handles every step of natural history collection work.
A flexible catalogue for minerals, fossils, shells, insects, meteorites, herbarium sheets, taxidermy and curiosities. Each category brings its own scientific fields — Mohs hardness, geological period, locality, collector, accession number — so every record is complete and audit-ready.
Reconstruct your physical cabinet digitally with rooms, cabinets, drawers, boxes and positions. Move specimens between locations, track loans, and find any object in seconds — even across thousands of records.
Generate museum-quality labels in classic, scientific, cabinet and QR-coded styles. Batch-print onto Avery sheets or export PDFs ready for the printer, with typography tuned for archival display.
Curate virtual exhibitions with sections, narratives, hand-picked specimens and cover art. Publish to a shareable URL or keep them private as planning tools for physical shows.
Publish your collection at www.museumica.com/your-name. Visitors browse a curated, public-facing version of your cabinet while private valuations, addresses and notes stay hidden.
See every specimen plotted on an interactive world map by collection locality. Filter by category, country, era or collector to spot gaps and stories in your holdings at a glance.
Run inventory, insurance valuation, acquisition history and missing-data reports. Export to CSV or PDF in seconds — ready for accountants, insurers or institutional audits.
Group specimens into curated collections by theme, project or exhibition. Add, remove and reorder records within a collection, then share the set with collaborators or use it as the starting point for labels and exports.
Export any selection of specimens in CSV, PDF catalogue or Darwin Core format. Darwin Core is the biodiversity conservation standard used by museums and research institutions worldwide — your data stays portable and interoperable.
Invite curators, conservators and researchers into your workspace with role-based permissions. Track who added, edited or relocated each specimen with a full activity log.
Museumica is built around a dedicated AI layer — not a chatbot bolted on, but tools that read your collection, write with your data and surface what you'd otherwise miss. The AI tools below are included on paid plans.
A threaded chat assistant that knows your collection. Ask about recent acquisitions, gaps by category, what a specimen is, or how to phrase an exhibition wall text — every conversation is saved and searchable.
Generate editorial, museum-quality descriptions from a specimen's metadata in one click. The model uses your facts — species, locality, period, dimensions — so you never invent provenance, only polished prose.
Search by meaning, not just keywords. Type "iridescent Devonian fossil from Morocco" and Museumica finds the right records even when those exact words aren't in the catalogue, powered by vector embeddings.
Turn a list of chosen specimens into a three-paragraph exhibition story with one click. The AI synthesises themes, geographies and time periods across your selection — a curator's first draft, in seconds.
Where a spreadsheet stops being enough for a growing collection.
| Aspect | Museumica | Spreadsheet |
|---|---|---|
| Specimen fields | Category-specific scientific fields with validation | Columns you invent, unvalidated |
| Photos | Multiple images per specimen record | Files in folders, links break |
| Storage locations | Rooms, cabinets, drawers, boxes, positions | One free-text column |
| Labels | Museum label templates, batch print, QR codes | Manual mail-merge each time |
| Public sharing | Public museum page with private fields hidden | Share the whole file |
| Exports | CSV, PDF catalogue, Darwin Core | CSV or XLSX |
| Multi-user | Roles and an activity log | Overwrite conflicts |
| Backups | Automated, EU-hosted | Your own discipline |
Read the full comparison: Museumica vs spreadsheets.
Compared with institutional systems such as Specify, eHive and Axiell.
| Aspect | Museumica | Specify, eHive, Axiell |
|---|---|---|
| Intended user | Private collectors, small museums, researchers | Institutions with collection staff |
| Setup time | Same day, no configuration project | Deployment and data modelling |
| Cost | Free Hobby plan, flat subscription | Consortium fees or institutional licences |
| Natural history fields | Built in per specimen category | Configurable, often generic object fields |
| Public presentation | Public museum page and virtual exhibitions included | Usually a separate portal product |
| Standards | Darwin Core, CSV, PDF | Darwin Core and aggregator pipelines |
| AI tools | Assistant, semantic search and descriptions on paid plans | Not part of the core product |
Detailed comparisons: Museumica vs Specify · Museumica vs eHive
Loved by collectors
"Fifty years of beachcombing and shell shows, and finally we have a catalogue that respects the beauty of what we have gathered. Every Conus, every Murex, every little cowrie is exactly where it should be."
Geoffrey & Margaret Pembroke
Private shell collection
Cornwall, United Kingdom
