Yes, Ken and all, Y2K is certainly something to take seriously.

The other area to be really concerned about, for larger museums at
least, is the Y2K compliance of your suppliers, too.  If you are reliant
on regular delivery of products or services to keep your museum running
(retail, food, alarm monitoring, payroll, security....) then you need to
get your suppliers to affirm that they too are checking their systems
(and their suppliers, too) to guarantee you that they can continue to
deliver service to you on and after 1 January 2000.

And don't forget, 2000 is a leap year.  In testing your systems, make
sure they can cope with 29 February 2000.  Some systems that will
survive 1 January will crash on 29 February.

___________

Stuart Park
Director Museum Resources and National Services
TE PAPA Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Wellington, New Zealand
(+64-4) 381-7251
[log in to unmask]


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kenneth R Deroux [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, October 02, 1998 6:36 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Y2K responses
>
> 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.
        [Stuart Park]  Snip
> 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.
        [Stuart Park]  Snip...
> 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
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.educ.state.ak.us/lam/museum/home.html