There are mac-users in the building, mostly the tree-builders (Paup and
MacClade users).  However, I believe all the collection databases are on
DOS-based Paradox on PCs.  Frankly, there's been little-to-no incentive to
change.  It's powerful, flexible, fast, and easy.  What else is there?

Some depts had an outside consultant customize the software and others had
an in-house person.  Some have very simple systems.  They wanted it exactly
like their previous version, which had been made in the 80s for a Wang
mainframe.  Others are more complex, with custom "scripts", related data
tables and lookup tables.  Some depts are still on the 486s we got when we
started with this system, others have upgraded hardware.

I think most of the collection managers are using Windows-based software for
other functions (MS Office or some of its components), and we do have a LAN,
but I don't think anyone keeps their db on it (except storage of backups).

Some of us are, however, looking into possible change.  We've gotten the
CHIN Collections Management Software Review (www.chin.gc.ca) and are
learning about our options.

One problem with trying to achieve a single museum standard is that we're
academics and tend to be rugged individualists.  No-one's going to tell *me*
what to use!  There can be no perfect software for all users, so there will
always be people for whom this package's weakness is much too important to
consider using it.  A package specifically designed for biological
collections means Anthro (much less Art or Historical) collection people are
disinterested.  On the other hand, those packages ideal for artifacts won't
have the pre-fab taxonomic reference information that makes systems like
Specify so appealing and will have a whole lot of material aimed at things
of no interest to the biologists.

I am put in mind of the ASC (excuse me, now NSCA) "Information Model" some
years ago.  It was an excercise aimed at finding a system of fields that
would cover all possible biological collections.  It was *HUGE*.  It was
bulky, it was unwieldy, it was complicated as all get-out, it was obtuse.
I'm not convinced it is of any real use, except as an excercise in
understanding the diversity of needs, just within the biological museum
community.  Add in the needs of artifact museums and it's got to be even
bigger and more complex.  Personally, I think the excercise clearly pointed
to the need to create *compatibility*, rather than *uniformity* in database
communication.  There can't, in my humble opinion, be an
all-encompassing-yet-useful single db system.  As long as I can get the info
I need from your db, I don't care what hardware, software, or customization
you're using.

Robin K Panza                         [log in to unmask]
Collection Manager, Section of Birds          ph:  412-622-3255
Carnegie Museum of Natural History       fax: 412-622-8837
4400 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh  PA  15213-4008  USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigo Nights [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
With that said, my curiousity has been piqued.  Is there a bias in the
museum world with respect to type of computer system?  Are more of you (and
if yes, I
suspect it's more of the Art type museums) a Mac environment or a PC one?

What operating systems are you using within that equipment?  Are you
Windows, DOS, and/or Linux based?

I think, as I'm working this out here, there OUGHT to be some sort of a
standard database for the museum world that is widely accepted as the
template of choice, kind of like Raisers Edge (Blackbaud) often is on the
fundraising side of it.

Seems to me this would be a good venture for an entrepreneur.

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