On  Tue, 16 Apr 1996 10:40:20 +0100 Jim Angus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Has anyone done a survey of what collection management software is in use
>in North American Museums?  Is there a 'center' which is working on
>standards?

Jim,

MCN (and others) have attempted to conduct such a survey but the return
rate has been so dismal as to be meaningless.  You can get a sense of
what's "out there" however, by going to MCN conferences and seeing who
(vendors) show up to exhibit in the Exhibit Hall.  There are also two
guides that list museum software vendors -- MCN's Vendor & Consultant's
Guide, and Archives and Museum Informatics Directory of Museum and Archival
Software (both are a bit dated  - 1994; but updates are in the works.)

As for standards, gosh, where do I start?  If you mean groups working on
nomenclature standards, the big names are:

CIDOC (The Documentation Committee of the International Council of Museums)
[WWW = http://www.icom.org/cidoc/]

Getty Art History Information Program --
[WWW http://www.ahip.getty.edu/ahip/Text_home.html]

MDA - The Museum Documentation Association
[www:  http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/other/museums/mda/

For museum information interchange standards, the "biggie" is:

CIMI - Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information
[WWW:  http://www.nstn.ca:80/cimi/]

For more information, the Museum Informatics Project at Berkeley has a good
directory of standards activities in the museum community.  Their address
is
http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/

Hope this helps. [Look forward to seeing you at another LA CultureNet event
sometime!]

Diane


Diane M. Zorich
7925 Via Ensenada
Carlsbad, CA 92009
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