MCN 2024

With the approaching end-of-life of Drupal 7, our ongoing challenges of managing separate websites for museum visitors and online collections, the construction of a new physical museum, and an impending rebranding, it was clear that we needed to reevaluate the overall architecture of Gilcrease's online ecosystem. In this session, we will present a case study and share the lessons we've learned from the decoupled migration of the Gilcrease Museums Online Collections.

You might be wondering, what exactly is a decoupled website? What benefits, drawbacks, and compromises did we encounter during the transition to a new website architecture? What are our plans post-launch? We will address these questions and many more.

We'll share relatable experiences and obstacles that small to medium-sized museums often face, demonstrating the strategies we used to “lift and shift” the website migration while balancing innovation with budget constraints and timelines. Throughout this process, we aimed to minimize technical debt and adhere to a reasonable timeline, despite the temptation to add new features. Sometimes, we resisted; other times, we had to compromise.

We will also share key technical highlights such as:
- A brief high-level overview of the Gilcrease collections systems architecture including TMS, Library, and ArchivesSpace custom integration with DAMS and collections website.
- Overview of the Piction to Drupal integration and delta sync.
- Building, serving, and presenting IIIF manifests with Drupal and Clover IIIF.
- Enhancing performance and SEO with decoupled architecture.