Hello listers, I really want to thank everybody who responded to my e-mail: (Original message at the end) Guy Hermann Linn Sande Stephen Toney Tim Karin Haubold Sally Erin Foley Ted Stearns Leslie Johnston Chuck Patch Tracie Umbreit Dot Dalziell Leonard Will Erik Christman Margaret Lyman Diane Gutenkauf Tim McShane IDRC Marketing department As some of you stated, there are different points of view from people when deciding what technology to use for "museum management automation" All your advices were very helpful, and based in my understanding of the opinions, we'll be doing the following: 1. Have CAUTION, and take "reasonable time" to develop a General Technology Plan based on the institution NEEDS in information management. 2. We will probably need a COLLECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM and not simply a database, so we will evaluate the possibilities: buy an off-the shelf package software OR develop our own system Personally, If an off- shelf package is customizable enough (by making some programming), that may work for us, but the evaluation will lead us based in specific needs. Existing information was also recommended by some of you (CHIN Review, Standards in Action: Spectrum IT Guide ). We plan to use some of them. 3. Meanwhile, we will make some minor fixes to our existing basic applications (VB + ACCESS) and continue using them for inventory and cataloguing. We' ll need to confirm with users from specific CMS packages, what we should take into consideration to ensure that the data collected using these applications will be recovered without any lost of information. (eg.field restrictions, classification, etc) Again, thanks a lot for your helpful comments and I'll be posting more specific topics in the near future. Ricardo Lopez *****************************************************ORIGINAL MESSAGE********************************************************************* ******** Hello everybody out there, I'm new to this mailing list. 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 *******************************************************END OF ORIGNAL MESSAGE****************************************************************** ========================================================= 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).