As a museum administrator, I had blithely assumed that some sort of
   shared public access catalog for even narrow sets of collections (for
   example botanical collections) could be readily specified and
   developed.  I was wrong, and wrong to a degree that I had barely
   imagined possible.  My experience was that museums have vastly
   different perceptions of the organizations of their collections; have
   vastly different resources, including, but not limited to, expertise
   and computer platforms; have vastly different organizational
   priorities.  Finally, I encountered a startling amount of friction in
   the community I was working in among competing platforms and
   development efforts.

   I think that your idea of a shared OPAC is admirable, but at best, I
   would limit it to a smaller subset of types of collections.  There are
   also many existing efforts toward that end that you need to research
   (I think Getty is leading one whole area in the Art Museum world).
   Finally, if you are a commercial venture, and hope to make money from
   this, I would advise serious market research and an in depth review of
   the potential obstacles and competitors.

   Eric Siegel
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