Willoughby Associates offers a hand-held inventory/audit and curatorial
information system -- Mobile Museum(tm) -- that interacts with our
collections management systems (Multi MIMSY and io).  The inventory/audit
module of Mobile Museum enables users to download information from their
databases into PALM OS-based hand-helds (Palm, Handspring, Clié, Symbol
1500, etc.) and then use the information to take inventories, condition
surveys, etc.  The data collected is then uploaded back to the database to
create new location and condition records and generate reports of missing
items, damaged items, etc.  The curatorial module enables a curator to
download detailed information on everything in his/her collection for quick
and easy access in storage areas and for such activities as installing
traveling exhibits.  

Mobile Museum can also run (as indicated above) on Symbol Technologies'
1500 unit which is a PDA with an integrated bar code reader for reading
1-dimensional barcodes (the kinds of barcodes everyone is familiar with).
Willoughby held a symposium in New York earlier this month to discuss the
potential of barcodes for museum collections using the 1500 unit and other
barcode technologies including 2-dimensional barcodes (2 dimensional
barcodes can hold extensive information about an item including an image).
 Another symposium on this topic is scheduled for Los Angeles later this
summer.  We are also developing an integrated barcoding strategy for
museums called AMBI(tm) that incorporates Symbol Technologies PDA's.

For more information on these applications, please visit our web site ---
www.willo.com -- or if you would like to discuss these technologies and how
our users are applying them, please contact me off-line.  

Lenore Sarasan
Willoughby Associates, Limited
266 Linden Street
Winnetka, Illinois  60093

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