Dear fellow collections managers,
I would be very grateful if you could spare a couple of minutes of your
time to answer a few questions. It would help immensely in addessing the
issues outlined below.
The Natural History Museum is now standing at a junction, in terms of
developing its Collections databases and associated data stores of
collections related information. In order to continue, we need to assess
the various option available to us. For example, do we continue as we have
been where each department develops its own systems independantly? Or
should this development be achieved through careful co-ordination to
maintain some consistency? Or do we follow the likes of the Smithsonian in
procurring an off-the-shelf Collections and Information Management system
(if we had the finances available to us!). In order to weigh up these
options, we need to look at amongst other things, the users and how the
demands from the users will change over time.
In November 2000, the Natural History Museum was host to a workshop in
Petrology Collections databasing - a useful discussion where it was
apparent that many institutes face numerous problems from lack of resources
for data entry, to the dilemma of how to develop the data once in an
electronic format. I'm sure you've been having similar discussions to us
since then!
A Committee has been set up within the NHM to advise the Trustees as to the
best route to take. It would help immensely if we had an understanding of
how other institutes are facing up to this problem. Please take a few
moments to provide a few details under the questions given below. I would
appreciate it if any responses are by the end of Thursday 17th Jan.
Sorry for the short notice. Many thanks for your time.
Dave Smith
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QUESTIONS RELATING TO COLLECTION DATA MANAGEMENT
Name of organisation
Product(s) used (in-house or commercial)
Age of application (if known)
Approximate number of records to date (if known)
Database, web-only or both
Whether accessed via a portal (if so give details if known)
Research or development programmes (with the potential to lead to a
database or web application)
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David A Smith
Loans Manager & Petrology Curator
Mineralogy Curation,
The Natural History Museum,
Cromwell Road,
South Kensington,
London SW7 5BD.
tel: +44 (0) 207 942 5163
fax: +44 (0) 207 942 5537
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/mineralogy/davesmith/davesmith.htm
collection information
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/mineralogy/collections/index.html
