I find that no matter what I am looking for the best, and often only,
way to find all of it in Past Perfect is to do keyword searches. Our
data was entered from card records, and although all of our data is in
there somewhere, it is still inconsistent. With a keyword search, you
are guaranteed to find the name you are looking for whether it's in the
People, Description, Notes, Collector, Artist or Donor fields or
somewhere else entirely.
You can search just your library catalog if you are only looking for
books, or if you have books scattered between library and object
catalogs (as we do) you can search both or all catalogs at once. You
can also customize your keyword searches to exclude commonly used words
(and, the, of etc.) or only search certain fields.
Keyword searches do take a little bit longer, and you do get a few
extraneous returns. But with a little common sense and a little
practice even your elderly volunteers should be able to find things with
relative ease. Until you have your data completely under control, I
believe it to be the most effective way to find things.
Good luck!
Callie Raspuzzi
__________________
Callie Raspuzzi
Collections Manager
Bennington Museum
75 Main Street
Bennington Vermont
tel (802) 447-1571
fax (802) 442-8305
www.benningtonmuseum.org
>>> [log in to unmask] 01/30/06 12:00PM >>>
For those of you who are using PastPerfect out there, which of the
research methods do you/your volunteers use the most?
My dilemma, we converted from FileMakerPro to PastPerfect going on two
=
years ago and the program is pretty much unusable do to the fact much
of =
the information did not end up in the correct field, somewhat
scattered. =
My plans were to have information entered into the people field and
searc=
h
terms field, by volunteers, and have our reference room volunteers,
most =
are of retirement age, use the people field and search terms field for
=
performing research request for our patrons in our research library. I
=
thought this would be the easiest method for our volunteers to access
the=
information.
I have been hesitant to teach our reference room volunteers the program
=
for fear of them getting frustrated at not being able to find the
information they are looking for. I have thought of training them to
do=
dataentry, but they are usually to busy to perform dataentry while
workin=
g
in the reference room.
My other dilemma/difficulty has been finding volunteers who are willing
t=
o
do dataentry.
I would appreciate any guidance, suggestions anyone can give on
training =
the "older generation" volunteer a new computer program, how to recruit
=
volunteers to do dataentry, and as stated before what research
method(s) =
most commonly used in PastPerfect. I have also cross-posted this
message=
at Pastime Software.
--Shannon
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