At 09:48 16/05/02 -0400, you wrote:
Julie Beamer wrote:
I'm sure it depends on the museum, but we get a lot of calls from
non-curators about our photograph collection, portraits, and even some
artifacts. We are planning to make our database available to the public
(hopefully some time next year) and it will be available through the
web.
Yes, but is a collections management tool, albeit web-based, the best way
to make it available to the general public? The number of catalogue
enquiries will depend on the museum but I'd wager the number of enquiries
forms a much smaller proportion than those visitors enquiring about
catalogue entries in, say, a retail bookstore. I choose this as an example
because two of the largest UK bookstore chains abandoned attempts to put
their catalogues on the web. If you want catalogue info about book
availability you now ask the info desk.
We're fortunate that our database system (Cuadra Associates)
includes a web interface in their museum system package.
Just because there is *a* web interface doesn't mean it's the right one to
do the job of presenting your collection to the public. This is not a
judgement on any particular package just an observation that it is easy
enough to knock together a website which interrogates an SQL-compliant
database - it doesn't necessarily serve users' needs particularly well.
But even with that, I don't think it matters that 70% of your potential
users are other curators. They are still members of your "public".
Online publically accessable catalogs are a valuable tool for the museum
world.
I don't disgaree about the importance of curators ! My point was that
serving their needs is a different project altogether and is where the XML
aspects, for data sharing, mentioned by Guenter Waibel are particularly
important.
Douglas
The Highland Clearances
http://www.theclearances.org
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