ricardo,
i think Past Perfect might well fill your needs.  i didn't have a contact email for you so have asked aaslh (amer. assoc. of state/local hist) to forward the request for info to altimira.  hope this works for you.
linn

Ricardo Lopez wrote:

> Hello everybody out there,
>
> I'm new to this mailing list (couple of days) and I don't know if your
> "museums community"
> has another more specific list for information technology in collections
> management, if so forgive me and please redirect me.
>
> I have the task of assessing a project in the information technology
> required to support the activities and procedures of a museum\cultural
> center.
> My experience is in the information technology area (information systems
> design and development, database design, etc) and I have NO knowledge in
> collection management systems for museums specifically, so I ask you to
> excuse the possible misuse of terms in this e-mail.
>
> This museum\cultural center is going to be opened in the year 2003 and it
> will manage (exhibit?) different kinds of objects in different areas
> (collections?):
> Visual arts, archaeology, ethnography and others.
>
> The building is not ready yet so the experts (artists?) will be working in a
> temporary deposit basically doing these tasks:
>
> Inventory of the collections (including making digital photographs)
> Classifying and cataloguing the collections
>
> OK, this is my general scenario, now the points at which I would appreciate
> any comments from you:
>
> The fact is that the project needs to have computer applications that help
> to manage the previously mentioned tasks in a automated way.
>
> There's a first question I have:
> SHOULD WE DEVELOP OUR OWN SYSTEM OR BUY A COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE OR MAYBE A
> COMBINATION OF BOTH?
>
> We already have simple applications to make data-entry and basic queries
> (developed in Visual Basic using MicroSoft Access), but I wonder
> IF WE SHOULD BEGIN USING THE DEFINITE SOLUTION SINCE THE BEGINNING OR MAYBE
> CONTINUE USING OUR EXISTING APPLICATIONS
> ADDING SOME BASIC FUNCTIONS (CLASSIFICATION FOR INSTANCE) WHILE WE IMPLEMENT
> THE FINAL SOLUTION (OWN SYSTEM OR COMMERCIAL APPLICATION)
>
> Any comments will be useful,
>
> Best regards,
>
> TIA
>
> Ricardo Lopez
> Ingeniero de Tecnologia
> Consultoria e Implementacion Tecnologica
> Santiago de los Caballeros, Republica Dominicana
>
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If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).