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The purpose of this paper is to describe the Arches heritage inventory and management system for the benefit of practitioners working with heritage inventories. Arches is a modern software platform purpose-built for the creation and management of inventories to support effective heritage place management. The system was developed as open source software jointly by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and World Monuments Fund (WMF).

The paper discusses the needs and challenges addressed by the GCI and WMF in developing Arches, explains the system’s design and functionality, reports on software releases and ongoing enhancements, describes current software implementations, and concludes by discussing the role and growth of the open source community and the Arches project’s aspirations.

The needs and challenges in the heritage field that the GCI and WMF originally identified have been confirmed through interactions between the Arches project and a range of practitioners. The suitability of Arches to address these needs is demonstrated through steady growth of the open source community and an increasing number of implementations of the Arches platform.

Arches provides a purpose-built system that is freely available and ready for use. It offers a system that requires a marginal investment by organizations compared to building digital inventories from scratch. The Arches project has created an international community of information technology and heritage practitioners to share experience, knowledge, and skills to address their common challenges in dealing with digital inventories.

The paper offers heritage practitioners details on a new tool for overcoming their challenges in building and managing digital heritage inventories.

The purpose of this paper is to identify key elements of what makes an inventory program effective for cultural heritage conservation and management. It is hoped that it will spur discussion among heritage professionals about increasing the effectiveness of inventory programs.

This paper reflects on more than a decade of experience with the establishment of heritage surveys and inventories at national and citywide scales in the Middle East and North America, and through site-based heritage management projects. In addition, it reflects on engagement with international professionals involved with heritage inventories.

Heritage inventories are permanent, ongoing records that require long-term institutional resource commitments. To be effective for heritage management, inventory programs should be established with links to heritage legislation, built upon data standards, and maintain dedicated personnel, programs of activity, and systems on an ongoing basis. Inventories are fundamentally different than heritage surveys, or other data collection activities, which collect information within a specific timeframe.

The findings are based on engagement with real-world, practical applications. It is hoped that the recommendations included will be useful to professionals working in heritage institutions that are establishing inventory programs, or seeking to modernize, invigorate, or increase the effectiveness of their inventory programs.

This paper presents insights gained through engagement with a large number and variety of heritage inventory and survey programs and projects from across the world, reflecting on broad trends and patterns.