According to Bill Lazenby:
>
> Thomas Dyer wrote:
> >
> >Who HASN'T lost something to the electronic void one way or another before
> >backing it up?
>
> Yes, we all have.  But HASN'T the information always been the product of a
> few minutes writing or at most a single day's worth of data-entry?  Surely
..........
> computer.  Even when cataloging directly to computer, the most that should
> be potentially lost is between a day's and a week's worth of work.  How
> often are hard copy files duplicated and transfered off site?
>
One of the simplest precautions that a computerized system
permits, is the ability to EASILY print out newly cataloged
data at the end of each day.  I would agree that it is the rare
institution that makes a duplicate copy of handwritten catalog
entries on a daily basis.

One also needs to consider the process used for cataloging data
-- both relative to cost of time (labor) and accuracy.  The
usual mode for cataloging mammal material, for example, is for
a body (???? who knows whom) to COPY the original data from a
field journal/log and/or specimen tag to a catalog; then
data are entered (COPIED) into the computer from the handwritten
catalog.  There is a duplicate effort in terms of labor & two
sources of potential error instead of one.

Different types of material are cataloged differently depending
on the manner in which the original data are gathered.  With
natural history collections, in some cases the original data
are in field logs, in others they are on tags attached directly
to speciments, in others they are still in the collectors
head....  The process of cataloging and relative value of
handwritten catalogs vary with the nature of the beast -- but
don't just automatically go with all handwritten or all
computerized JUST BECAUSE.  There needs to be a serious
analysis of the steps in the process, the relative amounts of
labor needed, where the sources of errors are, how the material
is edited/verified, how the data are to be 'backed up'... and
so on.

my 2 cents.....

--
Paisley S. Cato, Ph.D.                          e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Interim Director, Curator of Collections        phone:  540-666-8634
Virginia Museum of Natural History              fax:    540-632-6487
1001 Douglas Ave., Martinsville, VA 24112