[MassHistPres] mailto:masshistpres at cs.umb.edu

[Smiledge, Lynn W]

The Methuen Historical Commission just purchased Past Perfect by Pastime Software, which I understand is widely used nationally for small museums. Both Andover Historical Society and North Andover Historical Society have experience with it.

[Smiledge, Lynn W]  -----Original Message-----
From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu [mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu]On Behalf Of George Ashley
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 4:27 PM
To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Subject: This email has been identified as spam [MassHistPres] mailto:masshistpres at cs.umb.edu



The Hatfield Historical Commission is seeking advice on establishing a computer-based catalog/inventory of items in the Hatfield Historical Museum and Hatfield Farm Museum.  Until now the catalogs have been created in manuscript form by volunteers and the information recoreded has varied somewhat over the years.  Almost all of the work of creating a computer-based system will also be done by volunteers, so we are looking for a system which is very user-friendly.  Although we welcome any advice, we specifically ask:

Would you recommend a canned program (and if so please suggest a program and vendor) or would you suggest creating our own catalog in a widely available data-base program?

What information would you suggest be recorded (particularly if it might not occur to us now, but would be of value in the future)?

How should the data be preserved (We are inclined toward multiple "flash drives" salted in different locations and multiple paper print-outs)?

We welcome any advice.

George Ashley,chair

Hatfield Historical Commission