Rachel, We have been using Filemaker for our collections management for many years now, and like it very much. It is so easy to make changes that fit your needs in a timely fashion with FMP. My organization is actually right in the middle of a switch from Filemaker to TMS, though. Our upper management and the size of our collections dictate that we should be going with something a little more industry standard. If you have any specific Filemaker questions though, I'd be happy to answer them.
You got some great tips from the other users here. I'd just like to add two things, since you mentioned that your database experience was not extensive -- When creating your database, make sure to think about how the different pieces of data will relate to each other, and keep each piece of information as separate as possible. For instance, you are going to want to create an Artists table that relates to your Collection table. Don't try to store artist information and collection information in the same table. This way, you create only one record for an artist when many records of pieces in the collection can be linked to them. I've had the horrifying responsibility in the past of cleaning up flat databases where the same artist name has been manually typed into many records - often with conflicting artist bio information on the different records! This type of initial engineering mistake can happen with many different kinds of data, so make sure you have a clear database concept sketched out on paper. I also mentioned keeping each piece of data as separate as possible, meaning that if you have dimensions for a particular piece, keep each of those dimensions in a separate field (i.e. length_cm, height_cm, width_cm). Don't append things like "cm" or "in" to the data within the field, just keep it strictly a number with a measurement unit reference in the field name instead. The same should apply to things like names and addresses - keep a separate field for first name, last name, middle name. Don't create a field like "city_state_zip", because sooner or later you are going to want to extract only certain information or create scripts to modify many records at once, and if your data is not cleanly or uniformly input it will create so much more work for you in the long run. Having a clean set of data also helps when exporting records, and is an absolute must if you want to migrate to another form of database sometime in the future (like TMS!). Hope this helps :) Chris -- Chris Scrofani Honolulu Academy of Arts 900 South Beretania Street Honolulu, HI 96814 Tel. 808 532-3625 cscrofani at honoluluacademy.org Rachel Wormsbecher wrote: > > > Hello! I was wondering if anyone out there in the big virtual world could > offer me any advice for building a collections management database using > Filemaker Pro 8, software just purchased by the small museum I work at. I'm > not sure if I should use one of the templates (which one?) or build one from > scratch. My database experience is not extensive, so I have a lot to learn. > Any advice or helpful hints would be appreciated. Thanks very much! > > Rachel. > Collections Officer, Swift Current Museum > _________________________________________________________________ > News, entertainment and everything you care about at Live.com. Get it now! > http://www.live.com/getstarted.aspx > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > >
