As the topic is germane to several current threads on MUSEUM-L, enclosed is a
current case study on MS Access as used for providing educational and staff
access to the Sara Lee Corporate Art Collection.  Screen shots of the
application are included at
"http://www.microsoft.com/AccessDev/AccCase/SARALEE.HTM"

-Kevin Comerford


Masterpieces at the Desktop
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An enthusiastic art collector as well as a successful business leader, Sara
Lee Corporation founder Nathan Cummings believed that art holds a valuable
place in our working lives. Today, Sara Lee has expanded from its roots in
baking and now manages more than 120 brands, including Hanes, L'eggs, Coach,
and Champion. Still, the company continues to follow the path established by
its founder, bringing together the worlds of art and business with a permanent
display of museum-quality pieces at its Chicago headquarters. The collection
includes original works by Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, Matisse, Moore, Picasso,
and Chagall.

Recently, Sara Lee took a major step in helping its employees get more out of
this extensive art collection. With the Sara Lee Art Gallery Online, Sara Lee
employees will soon be able to explore the collection from the convenience of
their desktop.

Art Gallery Online, which began as a project for a multimedia course at
Columbia College, is a fully working prototype that will soon provide the
company and its employees with a complete digital record of its masterpieces.
The core of the online gallery is a database of information and images from
the company's collection. The database is enhanced by multimedia elements such
as voice, music, and video. The solution developers chose Microsoft(r) Access
as their database because they felt that it offered the most well-rounded
solution for their needs. The developers considered other multimedia authoring
tools, but decided that all of them fell short in the relational database
area. According to project leader David Widmer, "Since the heart of the
gallery is the database, a powerful and reliable database structure was most
important to us. Microsoft Access gave us a powerful relational database while
also supporting all the multimedia elements included in the gallery."

The project took between 50 and 70 hours to complete, with productivity tools
such as macros and wizards playing a key role in the development effort.
Widmer said that the availability of these tools was one of the most
compelling and attractive features of developing with Microsoft Access. They
allowed him to create a powerful solution without a long, labor-intensive
effort.

For the desktop user, a tour of the art gallery is just a button-click away.
The visitor can do any or all of the following:

 Enter the Welcome area to begin.
 Review a history of the collection.
 Take a lesson on Impressionism.
 Tour the Gallery (by artist, by completion date, or by curator's choice).
 Search the Index of Artists.  Sign the Visitor's Book before leaving.

Art Gallery Online will let workers throughout the company enjoy its
magnificent collection, browsing through the very-high-resolution images right
at their desktops and further fulfilling the artistic vision of Sara Lee's
founder.

Solution Developer:
Sara Lee Corporation
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(c) 1996 by Microsoft Corporation.