The computerization of a museum collection is never an easy task. The initial struggle with hardware, software, data formatting and the odious task of data entry is a great incentive to stay with a traditional manual file system. Eventually, however, your collection reaches a point where its size dictates computer cataloguing to perform the most elementary of collection management functions such as basic inventories. At Paleobiology, we reached that point about three years ago. Even a basic inventory took weeks to perform, hence the decision was made to finally computerize our catalogue records.
We were indeed fortunate to have access to the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), a museum collections inventory programme administered by Communications Canada. We had access to a mainframe with 7 gigabytes of memory and a dedicated support staff who did much of the initial work to establish our database, including a formal training programme for staff. CHIN allowed us to computerize our records without the often complex process of selecting software, since they already had established a successful system using PARIS software. The only hardware required was a simple terminal and a 1200 baud modem. All the communications such as data lines were handled by CHIN.
By October of 1986, our communication line, hardware and individualized software requirements had been established. We had the potential to access over 250 fields of information for each specimen. These fields included taxonomic, morphologic, geologic, locality and a myriad of other descriptive and collection management data (see sample attached).
One element of the project that CHIN did not assist us with was the lengthy process of data entry. I initiated this task and continued it through the effort of volunteers and student interns. In Ottawa, we are fortunate to have access to student interns from the museology programme at Algonquin College, and their dedicated efforts are invaluable to the eventual completion of this project.
To date, we have catalogued over 50% of our vertebrate fossil collections and we hope that the project will be completed within two years. Once the system is in place, it should prove to be a valuable collections and research tool, not just for our institution, but others as well. This is possible because of the establishment of the Natural Sciences data base which allows other research institutions mutual access to each other's data bases.
Overall, we are pleased with our cataloguing process. It promises to be a valuable tool for us now and in the future.
DOCUMENT 1 PARIS NUMBER 1418 USER ID NMQS1 DATE OF BIRTH 870107 DATE OF CHANGE 881228 NATIONALPARIS# 3001418 DESTINATION DB SNDB DEST.CONTROLFIELD 0 INSTITUTION NMNS DEPARTMENT PALEOBIOLOGY DISCIPLINE QUAT.ZOOLOGY CLASS Mammalia ORDER Artiodactyla FAMILY Bovidae GENUS Bison SPECIES priscus SPECIMEN NATURE Bone SPECIMENPOSITION right SPECIMEN NAME Hornsheath PARTIALSPECIMEN Fragment COLLECTOR Rampton,Fyles DATE COLLECTD 19690000 ACQUISITIONDATE 19700606 MODEOFACQUISITION Transfer ACCESSIONNUMBER 00429 ACCESSION DATE 19700615 CATALOGUENUMBER NMC17505 PREVIOUS NUMBERS 85 ROV CATALOGUER Shepherd,K.M. AGE/STAGE Adult DATING TECHNIQUES C14 ISOTOPIC DATING 1810+/-90yrBP LAB NUMBER/CODE Isotope 5407 ORIGIN-COUNTRY Canada ORIGIN/PROVINCE/TERR NorthwestTerr LOCALITY NAME BaillieIsland LOCALITY DESCRIPTION From beach at east edge of Baillie Is. LATITUDE 753500N LONGITUDE 1280800W MAP REFERENCE 107E/09 SOURCE Geo.Survey of CanadaK.M. Shepherd, National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa, Canada