A consortium of museums in Philadelphia is creating a combined collections database. We hope to eventually place this information on the Web (with appropriate security measures, data limitations, etc), and are currently looking at adding images of about 20% of each collection. Each museum already has some photography completed, but much more still needs to be done, (probably over 10,000 at one museum alone). Tradition calls for black & white photography -even if the computer fails, you have the negatives -but photography, film, development & storage are very expensive, not to mention scanning & CD conversion costs. A digital camera with image storage on writable CD-rom would seem to cut out some expensive steps, but is it really that easy? Does this method also cut out necessary steps? I would like to hear about any pitfalls, as well as praise, before before committing to one method or the other. Which is the best method to use, & what will make the project most cost efective? Margaret Lyman, Registrar Atwater Kent Museum 215-922-3031 [log in to unmask]