I'd like to thank those of you who responded to my inquiry awhile back
about museum preparations for year 2000 related computer problems. It was
good to see that at least a few museums were surveying their building
control systems for potential problems. Since the topic never came up
during the program planning for the just completed Western Museums
Conference in Anchorage, it was not among the conference sessions. However,
we did make it a topic of discussion in the workshop for State Museum
Associations and it would appear that while some of the larger museums are
beginning to deal with the issue it is still not sinking in with the museum
community at large. Furthermore, much of the focus is still on the software
or on the PCs running programs for collections, administration etc. for
which the fix is new PCs or software patches. But the problem doesn't go
away there.
I would like to draw everyone's attention to the fact that the equipment
running their climate control, security and fire suppression systems may be
at risk due to microchips with date function flaws. Since most museums have
a variety of components in these systems, which are also often connected to
PCs which themselves may have defective chips, it is imperative that
inventories be made of these components and that the manufacturers be
contacted for verification of Y2K compliance or non-compliance. Within the
next few months you will probably be hearing from your equipment
manufacturers or installers anyway, telling you to check your systems, get
upgrades or contact them, or release them from liability, because the
building control industry seems to be waking up late to this just like
everyone else.
We had a manufacturers service representative at our above-mentioned
workshop who told us just this. As an example, at the same time my museum
had contacted our service representative about our security system, he was
also being informed by his manufacturers, in this case Seibe
Environmental/Barber Coleman, that he needed to contact all his clients to
inform them they may potentially have problems, and that they were now
offering Y2K evaluations and solutions. While the industry is obviously
going to take a pro-active stance on this and try to make some money on it,
they are seriously concerned about various repercussions, including legal
ones.

I'd like to suggest that anyone organizing or attending conferences on
museum related issues in upcoming months try to get this Y2K issue on the
agenda somehow. It wasn't an advertised topic at AAM last summer either,
although it did get addressed in a late session on legal issues.

There is a wealth of information on the Web. A number of sites offer
on-line databases of compliant and non-compliant products. One of these is
called Vendor 2000 and it is at <http://www.vendor2000.com>
Another site that explains the embedded microchip problem in detail, with
links, is at <http://www.tmn.com/~frautsch/y2k2.html>

Again, thanks for your responses.

Kenneth DeRoux
Curator of Museum Services
Alaska State Museum
395 Whittier Street
Juneau, AK. 99801

(907) 465-2396
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http://www.educ.state.ak.us/lam/museum/home.html