(Apologies for cross-posting to:  TAXACOM, nhcoll-l, and MUSEUM-L.)

In January 1995, the University of California, Berkeley, Museum of
Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) began a three-year project to develop its next
collections information system.  As many of the challenges MVZ is facing in
this effort are shared by other museums, documents describing our progress
are being posted on the MVZ WWW server (http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/mvz/).

A draft of the MVZ's Requirements Analysis has recently been completed and
posted as two Adobe Acrobat files (*.pdf):

        Part I:  Functional Requirements  (8/31/95)
           http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/mvz/funcreq.pdf (90 KB)

        Part II: System Requirements  (10/20/95)
           http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/mvz/sysreq.pdf (114 KB)

The Functional Requirements section describes the activities that use,
produce, and modify information within the Museum, describes the ways that
information technology can be used to support those activities, and
prioritizes applications according to expected costs and benefits.  The
System Requirements section describes the capacities and essential
characteristics of the hardware and software that will fulfill the
functional requirements and will fit within the operating environment of the
Museum.


You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader appropriate for your computer to
display or print the files.  The Acrobat Reader (Ver 2.1) can be obtained
(free) from www.adobe.com or ftp.adobe.com for the following platforms:
DOS, Windows, Mac, SunSPARC (both SunOS and Solaris), SGI, and HP-UX.


Please direct any comments or inquiries to:

        Stan Blum ([log in to unmask]), and
        Barbara R. Stein ([log in to unmask])