Constance,
If I were them, I would scan all the docs as PDF files, then index them in a
hyperlinked .xls file that serves as the index.
It's simple to do, you can throw the whole directory up on a website behind
a login and password, and with a reasonable scanner, they can do about a
five drawer filecabinet a week.
Further, if they choose to, they can bulk OCR them and make each page that's
legible searchable.
It's cheap and easy and I've done it with OpenOffice.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Constance Warner" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: [CGUYS] Databases: Open Office Base?
It's like this: I was visiting the offices of a small nonprofit dedicated
to promoting civic activism and getting out the vote. One of the staff
members gestured towards a filing cabinet and some banker boxes and said,
"We'd like to get these [documents] organized and have a way to get these
out to our field organizers when they want them and when we need to send
them." They'd been using fax, U.S. mail, and hand carrying the documents
in the past. Right now, most of the documents aren't even in electronic
format. They have basic computers, of course, but neither they nor their
field organizers can afford the latest electronic bells and whistles (no
iPhones, for example). A lot of small nonprofits are like that.
So I was trying to offer them a few basic suggestions. FileMaker Pro
would be nice for them to use to index their documents, because it's easy
to use and, once it's set up properly, it's practically crash- proof. On
the other hand, it's expensive. Base is free, but I've never used it
(and neither has anybody else I know). Somebody else--
not me--will be doing the work for this nonprofit, but these are very
nice people and I wanted to offer them a few signposts.
They're really brilliant, politically; they just haven't had the time to
get really computer savvy, or the money for the latest computers,
webmasters, or IT workers.
--Constance Warner
On Jun 19, 2009, at 10:49 AM, t.piwowar wrote:
On Jun 19, 2009, at 2:15 AM, Constance Warner wrote:
For an acquaintance who's trying to organize a lot of documents to put
on a website, I was going to recommend FileMaker Pro, which I've worked
with for years and which can produce crash-proof databases. But it's
kind of expensive. What do you think?
I'm confused. Are these documents or databases that are to be posted
online? Flat files or relational model? The details make a big
difference in software selection.
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