The following comments were expressed at the Second Conference on
Partnership Opportunities for Federally-Associated Collection last fall in
San Diego.

Both scheduled sessions and individuals said "save and preserve the
originals".
        You never know when you need to return to the originals.
        The originals carry much more information than just the obvious
written word.
        Electronic records are subject total program loss, useless in power
failure, and often incomplete when entered by personnel who are data
entry/IS people but not                 experts in the field they are
computerizing.
        One veteran of data conversion programs estimated there was a 5%
data loss for every conversion undertaken.
        Computers can do wonderful things, but don't put all your faith in
them.

Attendees included representatives from Bureau of Land Management,
Department of Defense, Department of Interior, National Park Service, U. S.
Forest Service, NEH, Bureau of Indian Affairs, GSA, Smithsonian and the
Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN).

Of course this leads to the problems of storage and archives, but all felt
that dealing with a space/storage issue was better than destroying the
originals.

> ----------
> From:         Janice Klein[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent:         Thursday, March 04, 1999 7:29 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Sotware for museums
>
> Make sure your answer goes to museum-l, too!
>
>
> Janice
>
>
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> >Xref: paladin.american.edu bit.listserv.museum-l:41745
> >Newsgroups:   bit.listserv.museum-l
> >Date:         Wed, 3 Mar 1999 10:35:02 -0300
> >Reply-To: Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
> >Sender: Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
> >From: Veronica B|rger <[log in to unmask]>
> >Organization: IBM Global Services - Remote Access Mail & News Services
> >Subject:      Sotware for museums
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >Hi,
> >
> >    I work in a museum that's beginning to introduce a software to
> >handle it's collection this year. The guys in charge of this activity
> >think that the old records of collection, which are on paper, should be
> >thrown away, and from now on we should rely on the database of the new
> >system.
> >    I'm afraid that this could cause some inconveniences in the future.
> >Did somebody else in this list experience this kind of situation ?
> >
> >    Is there some texts talking about the use of software systems to
> >handle a museum's collection in the net, or in some magazine or book ?
> >
> >    Thanks for any information ....
> >
> >    Bye,
> >    Armando
> >
> >
>