Michael J Comiskey writes:
<snip>...what about Quixis..
While Minisis is a good system, its hardly the most well-known in the
world. We have used Quixis here at the Ulster Museum for the last 6
years. While it allows us to carry on basic documentation, it is not
without its problems. We cannot afford to move to another CMS for some
time yet, so we cannot obtain the benefits of using a commercial DBMS.
<snip>

The Getty Museum has been using Quixis since May of 1989.  It has
served us well, of course NO system is without its short-comings.  Over
this period of time we have and are using the system for much more than
basic documentation and could use it for much, had we the people
power to add the data.  Minisis is a stable system and one can learn
more about IDRC (developers of Minisis) and their other activities by
checking out their web page at:

http://www.idrc.ca/index.html

By working with a commercial vendor, Willoughby we have had the
benefit of their many years of experience with all kinds of museum
automation projects.  Their guidance and work on various projects with
us over the years has been invaluable.

Technology changes so fast that ALL systems become old quickly.  The
true value of our collections management systems is the data and all the
people hours gone into collecting, organizing, capturing, and maintaining
it.  If we've done these things well with the big pictures in mind, then we
should be able to port our data to the latest and greatest system that
meets our needs and budgets when we're ready.

I also echo Joe Nagel's comments especially, <snip> I think museums
should try to develop capability, not buy a product, <snip>

ditto ditto,  I think museums get into trouble most w/ their collections
management systems when they expect to depend on their system
vendor for day to day operations.  We need to develop  in house
capability with the systems we choose, or can afford to use.

Of course this can be nearly impossible in some institutions, given the all
the fine observations on another thread, Salaries!  How is an
over-worked, under-paid, over-qualified Registrar, Curator, Collections
Manager or whoever the duty of systems manager falls onto, supposed
to cope with yet another responsibility?  A technical responsibility that is
often foreign to his or her training.  I believe this trend is changing, albeit
slowly.  Then again nothing is impossible, and challenge is exciting.

Amy Noel
Manager, Collections Management System
The J. Paul Getty Museum      ****standard disclaimers***