The text of the article included below has just been published in "Object Magazine" and provides an overview of the progress that CHS has made in the field of collection management/digitization. I hope that some will find the information helpful. Though my comments are platform specific, I hope the fact that we have resolved so many common problems will make it pertinent to this list. Other computer platforms should, or should in the future, have similar capabilities. We are just moving to new headquarters in the downtown San Francisco area where ISDN data communication lines are available. We hope to have Web access to our collection data and images within a few months. I will alert pertinent lists as we go online. This, of course, will enlighten my comments of just days ago. "DIGITIZING THE FUTURE WITH NeXT AT THE CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY By supporting the infrastructure of the organization, NEXTSTEP has made the workplace a "productivity place." Robert MacKimmie With a successful transition to Mission Critical Custom Applications and OpenStep porting to major platforms, the time is right for an overdue appreciation of NeXT technology. One of the most overlooked aspects of the past half-decade is the the extent to which NEXTSTEP has provided a progressive and powerful work environment for small to moderate sized organizations. For those in the trenches, not having to tolerate vaporproduct and feeble computing environments has meant that significant progress has been possible by allowing the construction of profound information toolsets that are the foundation of tomorrow's information environment. Typical of many private non-profit organizations which serve the public at large, the California Historical Society lacked contemporary technology solutions and continues to be reliant upon the philanthropic interests of private foundations. Having conceived a project of digital access to collection materials, a small grant to provide a proof of concept consisting of one used NeXT Cube, a flat bed scanner, laser printer and minimal software produced results that continue to inspire not only the public, but museum and collection management professionals. The successful pilot project leveraged continuing support related to data management and facsimile retrieval, eventually providing staff for the specialized information development and a technology base consisting of ten NeXT Computers, three flat-bed scanners, one high-speed document scanner with optical, CD and DAT drives serving the entire system. The computers are spread throughout three floors of a Victorian mansion in San Francisco's Pacific Heights, many of the client-server computers functioning as specialized workstations. Moving into its fourth year of NeXT-based deployment, CHS has been pioneering information access aimed at making available the vast collections held at it's North Baker Research Library. Comprehensive data development is meeting standards for surrogate retrieval of materials typically found in museum and research library collections throughout the world. The information sets developed adhere to standardized thesauri and controlled vocabularies which are required for success in the maturing global research environment. Robust image handling, capable networking, file security and an array of powerful, well-integrated custom and shrink-wrapped applications have been a particular benefit in CHS' success---all made possible by NEXTSTEP's user friendly client-server environment. Prior to the explosive growth of Web/Mosaic, Internet navigation and digital imaging was vaguely comprehended by the public. Additionally, the evolutionary transformation of cryptic bibliographic information sets into open-standard, universally accessible formats remains highly dependant on specialized human labor. Integral online tools developed to interpret, manipulate and codify raw information streamlines the data standardization process. Optical Character Recognition, text processing and initial database manipulation can quickly groom pertinent data to a useful state. When the configured information engine is able to retrieve specific documents, digitized photographs for instance, the need for traditional staff-based access is minimized with two important benefits: a researcher is able to locate disparately located materials without institutional assistance (positions that are vanishing in present-day budgets) AND original materials, often rare, valuable and extremely fragile remain safely housed in their temperature/humidity controlled vaults. Typically, a digital surrogate of a delicate unmounted albumen photograph by a prominent California landscape photographer in the 1860s can be printed out on a laser printer, sufficing for researchers in most instances. Because the handling of original material is the greatest threat to their preservation and longevity, digital access compounds the digital project benefits---near immediate review of the material is possible whether on site or at a distance, something made possible only by global access of the Internet. Primary sources materials curated for the digital imaging project includes photographs, broadsides, manuscripts, sheet music illustrations, rare book woodcuts, ephemera and realia--physical objects, such as a money belt which travelled across the Isthmus of Panama on its way to the Gold Rush in California. Robust subject cataloging provides hooks which await the pertinent queries of researchers. A search on the ubiquitous Sutter's Mill, where gold was first discovered in the 1848 pre-state of California, will invoke a vintage drawing from a daguerreotype of the river scene complete with miners doing Sunday laundry, a portrait of John Sutter, a portrait of John Marshall (the actual discoverer of gold in 1848) in front of the mill, a commemorative 50th year portrait of Marshalls's four fellow workers at the time of gold's discovery, a descriptive vintage map of the goldfields, an image of the first published newspaper listing of gold's discovery, an aerial photograph of the riverbed made in the 1960s which shows the former path of the river with the mill's location, and finally, there is a photograph of the Sutter Mill corner posts which were excavated from the site more than 100 years after it was abandoned. The fact that these are not just references to the material but images provides an immediate sense of vibrant history with veracity that has not previously existed. Once the data is Internet connected, whether the researcher is a museum curator making final selections for a groundbreaking exhibition, a fourth grade student working on a school report, or a publisher seeking specific rare materials to illustrate a text, these new methods of scholarship are clearly invaluable. Digital searches of indexes now makes possible in twenty minutes what would have been two weeks of hit and miss detective work. So what is so revolutionary? Client-server networking providing the unseen power of UNIX, user friendly interface, interoperability of third-party applications through the API and powerful tools bundled with the OS have provided a scalable solution for modest sized organization with the need for powerful solutions. Shrinkwrapped software, while not as bountiful as selections on mainstream OSs, is all encompassing and provides productivity suites that make comprehensive work an achievement miracle. The effectiveness of NEXTSTEP/OpenStep in supporting the infrastructure of an organization cannot be understated. The workplace becomes a productivity place. Vertical market solutions have been available where shrinkwrapped software has not offered a solution. For the CHS digital imaging initiative, Virginia Tech Library Systems, (VTLS), has provided museum and library communities with a multimedia bibliographic front-end for the multimedia database and it remains well ahead of the capability of other bibliographic vendors. The development environment of NEXTSTEP/OpenStep provides critical custom software tailoring in addition to evolving data management solutions such as Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF) from NeXT. Mainstream shrinkwrapped applications now available across the quad-array of major hardware should be considered as indispensable tools for enterprise success. Applications such as Stone Design's DataPhile database are as useful for data manipulation as a hammer is to a carpenter. As if that weren't enough, the host of bundled NeXT applications has offered mainstream employees powerful capabilities not available on other popular platforms. The California Historical Society has been able to make steadfast progress not only by moving toward the future environment of data management, but thanks to the powerful toolset and information management system, we have been able to help shape what that future will be. Happily, it is user friendly and substantive. Robert MacKimmie Curatorial Director of Photography California Historical Society [log in to unmask]" END