In article <9831191410091996/A01757/VAX2/11A953931D00*@MHS>, "Patricia Davis-
Perkins (Tel 776 8442)" <[log in to unmask]> writes

>I am interested in hearing from anyone out there, who has  had experience in
>operating, coping and perhaps flourishing in the use of a Library Information
>system for the documentation of material culture collections. In particular,
>what are the pleasures or pitfalls of  using MARC format Coding to document
the
>objects to standards similar to our Library colleagues.

It would be worth your while talking to Patsy A. Gerstner <[log in to unmask]>
at the Dittrick Museum of Medical History in Cleveland, where they have been
cataloguing historical medical artifacts using MARC and the library
cataloguing cooperative, OCLC. They had completed about 20,000 object records
when I last heard from her, in January 1996.

There is an article about this by Patsy Gerstner and Jennifer Compton: "Public
access to museum collections: MARC and OCLC - the experiences of an Ohio group
. . ." _Spectra_, vol.22, no.4, Summer 1995, p.25-28.

This is the same issue of _Spectra_ as contains the article by Robert Baron,
which he referred to in this thread.

I agree with Robert that MARC is not a suitable medium for handling or
communicating museum data in a modern relational structure. If you already
have a library system set up, if you have a comparatively small number of
museum objects, and if you are mainly concerned with "cataloguing" rather than
"collections management" then it might be sensible to put the museum objects
into the library system. Otherwise I think you would do best to use one of the
systems which have been built for museum applications.

Leonard Will

--
Dr Leonard D Will                    Tel: +44 181 372 0092
Information Management Consultant    Fax: +44 181 372 0094
27 Calshot Way, ENFIELD, Middlesex   Email: [log in to unmask]
EN2 7BQ, United Kingdom              WWW: http://www.willpowr.demon.co.uk/