Our museum switched from Access to PastPerfect several years ago, and
I've been pleased with the change.  I am able to find things more
quickly in PP and I like having the thumbnail image.  Access might be
more powerful, but I was simply never going to have the time to take
advantage of it.  Furthermore, I have interns, volunteers, and
contractors who needed to be able to search and find results, and
PastPerfect has been infinitely easier in this regard.  The transition
from having all my fields the same for each record to having three
different kinds of records (objects/archives/photos) with a few fields
in each one different was a little tricky for me.  Measurements are in a
different location in each section, for example...but so far this is the
level of complaint I have and that's pretty minor.  I have utilized the
"library" section to enter bare-bones descriptions of our reference
library, including slides, blueprints, files etc, and this has been a
great resource for us.  Our museum has about 8,000 items in the
collection and 4 staff members.  Let me know if you have more specific
questions I might be able to answer...

Best wishes,
Ellen Carrlee
Curator of Collections and Exhibits
Juneau-Douglas City Museum

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Brad Holderman
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 8:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Past Perfect vs. Access...

Andy,

First, I don't work with a museum.  But, I have some
experience with Past Perfect, but use and develop MS
Access for a large format blueprint firm.  Based on
some conversations I have had offlist, you starting
point in considering each is the individual(s) who
will be assembling and managing the database. 
Depending on that person's skill and complexity of the
database can lead towards either way.  Clean and
simple, I would go with Past Perfect as it is a
collections management software.

As for Access, a lot more can be done with it
utilizing its Visual Basic and SQL capabilities.  With
this, it can be used as a simple search and
collections management, but also developed further as
a research and analytical tool.

As I mentioned, my experience with Past Perfect and is
pretty limited, but analytical process and development
options seem to be pretty limited.

I'm sure others will dissect my argument fairly
thouroughly, and come back with other comments will
help me out as well.  

Cheers,
Brad
--- Andy Dickes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hello-
> 
> My institution is considering a change for our
> collections management 
> database.  I am interested to know people's opinions
> on Access and Past 
> Perfect, and the pros and cons of each system.  We
> are interested in 
> something user-friendly and efficient, with search
> options that make it 
> possible to find pertinent artifacts quickly for new
> exhibits.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
>
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