For whatever it is worth, our collections index has been searchable on the
Internet for several years. We are now heading up, under a $50,000 grant
from Houston Endowment, Inc., the development of the Texas History Internet
Consortium. The inititial goal is to get the collections indexes of four
other history museums and a major library in this region to digitize their
collections data and put it on the Internet in such a manner as to allow
searchers access to all indexes simultaneously from any one of their
websites. When the pilot project is complete, the consortium will be
expanded to include all history museums and archives in Texas.
We feel that this will be a tremendous aid to researchers all over the
country, if not the world, who are seeking information on Texas history. A
number of academic scholars have commented positively on the project. It
has been endorsed by the Texas Library and Archives.
It is not our philosophy to hide what we have. We want the world to know
it is here.
------
Robert Handy
Brazoria County Historical Museum
100 East Cedar
Angleton, Texas 77515
(409) 864-1208
museum_bob
[log in to unmask]
http://www.bchm.org
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From: Tim McShane[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 1999 5:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Web Databases (collections)
I can understand Mr. Scafidi's concern in disseminating too much
information about collections; I had similar concerns when the board
of the Arrow 2000 Project first proposed putting our collections
database on the Web. But consider this: the heart of most museums are
their collections. The mandates of most museums cannot be met by
simply hoarding objects, or by displaying them with no interpretation.
Some information about the object has to be communicated to the
public. Certainly, some information should be extremely limited in
it's circulation (such as personal donor information, financial
information, etc.), but what's the harm in making information that
would be available in your exhibitions available to the everyone with
WWW access? A brief description of the object, plus the object's
accession number, would be enough identification for most Web-visitors
and researchers, and would provide the necessary information for
requests to the institution for more detailed info on any one item.
We have made the decision to put a limited version of our collections
database on our website, but as we are still computerizing our
information (we're still a young museum, just over a year old) and our
website needs some work, we have not yet publicized our collections
info in this manner. I would like to see more dialogue on this
topic--it will help to guide our actions.
Incidentally, a big factor in easing my mind over the decision to put
collections info on our website was seeing what Artefacts Canada has
done with the collections information from museums across Canada.
Interested persons may wish to check this out for themselves at:
http://daryl.chin.gc.ca/Artefacts/e_MasterLayout.cgi?db=1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim McShane
Curatorial Assistant, Parks Canada
(also, Co-Chair of the Museum Division, Arrow 2000 Project)
Views and opinions expressed are entirely my own, and do not
necessarily reflect those of Parks Canada or the Arrow 2000 Project
Association
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