Patricia McElyea (Curator of Collections from Arkansas State University
Museum) wrote:

>Early this year we switched from Argus to the new Past Perfect software that is distributed by AASLH.  We have been delighted not only with its features but also with its ease of use...

While a constant "lurker" on this list I rarely post, but in this case:
(OK..., long run on sentence here):  At the time of the ARGUS
installation, I was the person who supervised the technical support end
of this equation for the vendor involved and from "my" point of view
Arkansas State University Museum greatly "over-bought" for their needs
(were "over-sold" is a question of semantics I don't want to get into
here).

"Needs" go well beyond the number of objects which must be entered into
the database or the speed of retrieval.  Staffing time and in-house
expertise (or just plain computer literacy) must certainly be
considered.  A system which may be nearly infinately configurable
requires large amounts staffing time to implement.  "Bells and whistles"
may be COOL, but will they be used and does the staff have time to use
them.

A few weeks back Janice Klein from the Field Museum said that they were
using ACCESS (I think?) quite happily.  We're not even close to a
plateau in the development curve of software/hardware innovation.
Beyond serving current needs, probably the most important question that
an institution needs to consider is the ease of convertablity of the
data stored to the "next" system.

Steve Erdmann
(formerly Vice President and General Manager for Questor Systems, Inc.)

+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|  IMAC - Independent Museum Automation Consultants   |
|  Steven F. Erdmann,  Managing Consultant            |
|  [log in to unmask] (e-mail)   626-791-2112 (voice) |
|  http://home.earthlink.net/~imac/                   |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+