Hello everybody out there,

I'm new to this mailing list (couple of days) and I don't know if your
"museums community"
has another more specific list for information technology in collections
management, if so forgive me and please redirect me.

I have the task of assessing a project in the information technology
required to support the activities and procedures of a museum\cultural
center.
My experience is in the information technology area (information systems
design and development, database design, etc) and I have NO knowledge in
collection management systems for museums specifically, so I ask you to
excuse the possible misuse of terms in this e-mail.

This museum\cultural center is going to be opened in the year 2003 and it
will manage (exhibit?) different kinds of objects in different areas
(collections?):
Visual arts, archaeology, ethnography and others.

The building is not ready yet so the experts (artists?) will be working in a
temporary deposit basically doing these tasks:

Inventory of the collections (including making digital photographs)
Classifying and cataloguing the collections

OK, this is my general scenario, now the points at which I would appreciate
any comments from you:

The fact is that the project needs to have computer applications that help
to manage the previously mentioned tasks in a automated way.

There's a first question I have:
SHOULD WE DEVELOP OUR OWN SYSTEM OR BUY A COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE OR MAYBE A
COMBINATION OF BOTH?

We already have simple applications to make data-entry and basic queries
(developed in Visual Basic using MicroSoft Access), but I wonder
IF WE SHOULD BEGIN USING THE DEFINITE SOLUTION SINCE THE BEGINNING OR MAYBE
CONTINUE USING OUR EXISTING APPLICATIONS
ADDING SOME BASIC FUNCTIONS (CLASSIFICATION FOR INSTANCE) WHILE WE IMPLEMENT
THE FINAL SOLUTION (OWN SYSTEM OR COMMERCIAL APPLICATION)

Any comments will be useful,

Best regards,

TIA

Ricardo Lopez
Ingeniero de Tecnologia
Consultoria e Implementacion Tecnologica
Santiago de los Caballeros, Republica Dominicana

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).