For whatever it is worth, our collections index has been searchable on the Internet for several years. We are now heading up, under a $50,000 grant from Houston Endowment, Inc., the development of the Texas History Internet Consortium. The inititial goal is to get the collections indexes of four other history museums and a major library in this region to digitize their collections data and put it on the Internet in such a manner as to allow searchers access to all indexes simultaneously from any one of their websites. When the pilot project is complete, the consortium will be expanded to include all history museums and archives in Texas. We feel that this will be a tremendous aid to researchers all over the country, if not the world, who are seeking information on Texas history. A number of academic scholars have commented positively on the project. It has been endorsed by the Texas Library and Archives. It is not our philosophy to hide what we have. We want the world to know it is here. ------ Robert Handy Brazoria County Historical Museum 100 East Cedar Angleton, Texas 77515 (409) 864-1208 museum_bob [log in to unmask] http://www.bchm.org ---------- From: Tim McShane[SMTP:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 1999 5:43 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Web Databases (collections) I can understand Mr. Scafidi's concern in disseminating too much information about collections; I had similar concerns when the board of the Arrow 2000 Project first proposed putting our collections database on the Web. But consider this: the heart of most museums are their collections. The mandates of most museums cannot be met by simply hoarding objects, or by displaying them with no interpretation. Some information about the object has to be communicated to the public. Certainly, some information should be extremely limited in it's circulation (such as personal donor information, financial information, etc.), but what's the harm in making information that would be available in your exhibitions available to the everyone with WWW access? A brief description of the object, plus the object's accession number, would be enough identification for most Web-visitors and researchers, and would provide the necessary information for requests to the institution for more detailed info on any one item. We have made the decision to put a limited version of our collections database on our website, but as we are still computerizing our information (we're still a young museum, just over a year old) and our website needs some work, we have not yet publicized our collections info in this manner. I would like to see more dialogue on this topic--it will help to guide our actions. Incidentally, a big factor in easing my mind over the decision to put collections info on our website was seeing what Artefacts Canada has done with the collections information from museums across Canada. Interested persons may wish to check this out for themselves at: http://daryl.chin.gc.ca/Artefacts/e_MasterLayout.cgi?db=1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim McShane Curatorial Assistant, Parks Canada (also, Co-Chair of the Museum Division, Arrow 2000 Project) Views and opinions expressed are entirely my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Parks Canada or the Arrow 2000 Project Association