Message-Id: <199706051323.GAA324988@dns.ccit.arizona.edu> Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 08:22:16 CDT From: Patricia Bruce <mailto:PBruce@SWRI.EDU> Subject: Re: database construction To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Yes....the basic question of how to incorporate the use factors and the technical aspects of database development must be included in this process. The technical aspects only seem to be the driving force. This nonprofit private research and development corporation would like to care for its historical and modern photographic, fine art (800+ objects) and the technical exhibits as a museum, plus. This includes the management of intellectual information and the technical aspects. Add reproduction sales, publication creation and museum loan records practice to the equation and you have a interesting stew of possibilities, that does not appear to have been addressed.....a full collection management need. So, we do look for the world in a box to tweak......(we don't want to "reinvent the wheel") adding visuals to assist our scientist-customer to locate just the perfect image to illustrate a point for publication, and an accounting/loan link to improve efficiency and lower incidences of human error.....all the while maintaining the standards of a research library and the museum sciences. We need an expanded museum management system that will grow with us. Museums+Libraries+Computers+Business document management"Robert A. Baron" <mailto:rabaron@PIPELINE.COM> Wrote: |
| At 04:38 PM 6/4/97 -0700, Richard Rinehart wrote:
|
| >I know you can take a raw database program and fit it to
| any institutional
| >need by defining fields/relations, but when looking at
| off-the-shelf
| >systems it's good to look at intended use factors in
| addition to the
| >technical requirements/power ratios.
| >
| >my two c :)
| >
| Richard is undervaluing the worth of his advice. While
| the technical
| issues that must be faced to deliver large image databases
| are immense, I
| think there is a tendency among those who must consider
| these questions to
| undervalue the complexity of the data structures needed to
| provide a
| serious intellectual backbone to their work. Without
| mentioning the
| obviously sophisticated requirements associated with
| object management that
| museums need, any intellectual database of even modest
| pretensions must be
| able to handle 1) multiple dated attributions (maker,
| school, style,
| bibliography and commentary) and their history, 2)
| part/whole/associated
| relationships among objects, some of which inherit and
| some of which do not
| inherit attributes from their parents (and some of which
| may not even exist
| any longer or are simply thought to have existed), 3)
| relationships between
| objects and the images which document them, and the makers
| of those images,
| and 4) other sets of attributions to an ever
| changing/evolving list of
| stylistic and cultural criteria and provenance. (Not to
| mention meaning,
| iconography, literary, historical and social
| associations.) While the
| above-stated concepts may suit historians and curators,
| there will be
| entirely different sets of requirements for graphic
| artists and
| illustrators, for anthropologists, etc.
|
| The problem at hand (as I see it) is not simply one of how
| to deliver the
| images, but rather how to find those to deliver. When we
| look at the eight
| or ten standard fields that typically accompany some
| museum's contribution
| to web-based databases, we know that while they might
| satisfy eighty
| percent of the public's need to find information, they do
| not come anywhere
| near what might be demanded by scholarly inquiry.
|
| It may be that the need to engage the public is the force
| driving the
| development of image database systems, and that scholarly
| requirements must
| accordingly take a back seat, but if all the work that
| goes into serving
| that hypothetical public is not at some time transformed
| into lasting
| scholarly systems of record, I imagine that once the
| public infatuation
| ebbs, much of the effort expended in their behalf will
| have been wasted.
|
| And the reason why this is so is because it is the
| scholarly tradition that
| keeps the data alive and causes it to evolve to suit
| contemporary needs and
| issues. Without scholarly input (even though it is often
| hidden from the
| public) information quickly becomes stale and moribund.
|
|
|
|
|
| ===========================
| Robert A. Baron
| Museum Computer Consultant
| mailto:mailto:rabaron@pipeline.com
|