Dear Ms. Goodgame,

The Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), has produced the
Collections Management Software Review. This Review contains detailed
evaluation results and statistics for 21 Collections Management Software
products and includes a criteria checklist of over 500 functional items
used to conduct the evaluations. By using this same checklist, museums can
determine their needs and create an institution-specific checklist. The
Review is meant to assist museums in integrating in-house systems into
their institutions and to encourage them to take advantage of the growing
availability, cost effectiveness and user friendliness of current software.
This tool will assist museums in determining their requirements, narrowing
their search and selecting the software best suited to their institution.

If you would like to discuss collections management software or have any
further questions, please feel free to contact me at 1-800-520-2446.

Diane Bowden
Technology Assessment Centre
Canadian Heritage Information Network
www.chin.gc.ca

At 12:10 PM 11/12/98 -0600, you wrote:
>I am trying to get some information on varying types of coll. mgmt.
>software.  We have a collection of artworks, mostly on paper.  The total
>number of objects is in the low thousands.  We'd like something that is
>Windows based, with the ability to add digital pictures.  I have
>absolutely no experience in this area, but I thought I'd help my
>curator  find a few resources.
>
>We are looking for a program that makes data entry as simple as
>possible, and one that uses real English when it comes to searching,
>etc.  We will only be using the program for collections management, not
>for other database needs, therefore a generic database program like
>Rbase or Access is not what we are looking for.
>
>Please give suggestions based on programs you use and have had success
>with.  Also, names and numbers/ web addresses of contact people would be
>exceptionally helpful.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Lisa Goodgame
>
>