I am working with an archive institution which has a large repository (papers, 
manuscripts, photos, objects).  They curretlymanage their archive collection 
on an ACCESS 3.0 database and need to migrate to a better platform.  Much 
of their database is about managing their workflow (tracking accessions, 
inventory, reporting on statistics on reference usage, etc.). Since it will 
mostly be for internal usage (although their website will use it as a backend 
for collection searching), what programing language and/or open source 
technologies are most flexible and popular right now in the library/archive 
world? They have customized their current database too much to 
accommodate to a "off-the-shelf" type package.

I am new to the Code4lib site and your advice is much appreciated.

Linda Colet