The New Collaborations Initiative encourages collaboration, knowledge exchange, and joint projects between colleges and universities, museums, libraries, research centers, and other learning-focused organizations.

The Pachyderm 2.0 Project, a partnership led by the NMC and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), is its centerpiece effort and experimental test bed. Funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the project partners are creating a new, open source authoring environment for web-based and multimedia learning experiences.

The project is an excellent example of cross-sector collaboration, bringing together the metadata and other knowledge of the NMC’s library community, the technological skills in infrastructure and programming of NMC university members, and the expertise of a team of experienced interactive producers from a number of leading art museums.

The new tool is based on an authoring and publishing tool developed by SFMOMA to author its successful series, Making Sense of Modern Art. Developed by SFMOMA to make the publication of modular and updateable rich media an easy task, Pachyderm has allowed non-programmers to create a variety of engaging resources that draw from the digital collections of SFMOMA. The result has been detailed interactive learning programs such as Ansel Adams at 100 and Eva Hesse. To date, literally millions of online and in-museum users have used the interactive learning programs authored using Pachyderm at SFMOMA.

The beta of Pachyderm 2.0 was released to NMC members in spring 2005, and the new authoring environment is being piloted by leading museums and universities across North America in an extensive series of field tests. The learning materials created with Pachyderm 2.0 will be optimized for Internet delivery, easily reusable, and conformant with key search, archival, and cataloging standards.

The final product will be made available to the field at no charge as an explicit goal of the project.

The latest information on the Pachyderm 2.0 Project, including an extensive collection of papers and reports, as well as detailed specifications for the tool, can be found in the Pachyderm Document Archive.