My recommendation is to start by identifying the problem(s) with your
current database. What is it about Access that's not meeting your needs?
Next identify, in addition to the things you do need, the things you want.
Do you want a quick and easy public interface? Do you want to be able to
set it up for OAI-PMH harvesting? Do you want integration with a Getty
controlled vocabulary (ULAN or AAT, etc)?
PastPerfect is perfectly acceptably for a historical museum, but not many
art museums use it - because it is focused on historical collections, not
art. We abandoned it and moved to CollectiveAccess (which is open source -
and free) in large part because of the problems with how PastPerfect
handled our art (and natural history) collections.
There are plenty of low-cost options that deal well with small collections.
You might also look at eHive, Musarch, and possibly even Omeka (which was
designed to be online exhibition software but has recently developed some
modules to allow more traditional collections management activities). All
of these, including PastPerfect and CollectiveAccess have demos available.
The Canadian Heritage Network has a nice checklist of possible features
that might help guide your thinking. See
www.rcip-chin.gc.ca/carrefour-du-savoir-knowledge-exchange/criteres_gestion_collections_management_checklist-eng.jsp
Good luck,
Kaia

Kaia Landon
Director
Brigham City Museum of Art & History

On Thursday, July 9, 2015, MUSEUM-L automatic digest system <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> > On Jul 9, 2015, at 1:25 PM, Maggie <[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > I work for a small non-profit with an art collection of about 2,000
> objects. We occasionally loan works, and accession several items each year.
> We are considering switching our collection management software from
> Microsoft Access to PastPerfect as an affordable, out-of-the-box solution.
> I wanted to get some thoughts or tips from people who work with
> PastPerfect, and see if there are other affordable software recommendations
> for a small collection.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
>

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