Jim Lyons wrote:

> Here's my suggestion:  Take amazingly detailed photographs, make photos that can be enlarged to high-quality frameable copies, make measurements and detailed descriptions and histories of each and every important item in your collection, starting from the most precious -
> history-wise - on down.  This includes both physical objects and manuscripts and other paper materials, plus all documentation.  No doubt many of you do this now.

I think that is a wonderful idea, Jim. I'm sure that most large museums require that kind of documentation now for their own records, but many smaller ones do not. Your suggestion of sharing (storing) those records with other museums is good. If that had been done with the Iraq
museum, television documentaries could show those photos to the world so people would know to watch for them. (Of course, it might also encouraging melting down of precious metals, but not everything taken would melt down into a saleable item.)

I have shopped for cataloging programs for our local museum and for libraries here, so I know that there are wonderful possibilities in electronic databases now -- pictures, detailed descriptons, locations, etc. I am also wondering if perhaps there is a server somewhere that could
store these kinds of records, with backups at the individual sites. As long as it is operable, such a server would be a great resource for scholars to find where to go to study different items; the backups at different sites would provide security in case something disastrous
happened to the server.

Such a system of records should be valuable enough that different governments should be willing to support it in order to prevent *complete* loss of national treasures. At least there would always be photos and detailed descriptions and copies of documents even if the item itself
were to stolen or destroyed.

Betty in Texas

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