I know someone who works as an archivist. Up to now, she used a proprietary program called ScopeArchive (http://www.scope.ch/englisch/html_e/html_archiv/e_archiv_syst.htm) which is very popular here in Switzerland. Scope builds upon an Oracle Database.

As I don't know very much about that sort of content management systems it's hard for me to find a free alternative (if such a one already exists). As I understand it, Scope (or at least that module she uses) is used to index physical objects in an archive and map them as datasets in a tree-like relationship and add lots of metadata to them. So, can anyone help me?