ARCHIVAL INFORMATICS NEWSLETTER Part 1 of Archival Informatics Newsletter &. Technical Reports ISSM 0892-2179 Sua.or.1987 Yoluao 1.· 2 welcome. Firstbecause theyare chall~ THIS ISSUE inthemselves. and are the kinds of opimon Actually. Canada has been justnorth ofus for a pieces which would nothave found their longJime. even though itmay seem from this issue of way to J!rin.t ex~ through a vehicle such as theNewsletterthatwe justdiscovered it! this. an(l second oecausethey demonstrate a As~ throu~outthisissue. archival automa­ need for the Archival InformaticsNewsletter tionactivityinCanidahasreachedacrescendorecent­ more than anvt.bin.e I can;:r' ly. Tom Brown's column (p.5-7) reports on the ex­ The first isSue ofArchL Informatics citing I-ASSIST and ACAmeetings. The article by Technical R~. on Optica1Media in John"McDonald (p.14-15) exploresthe challeJ:Jges archives and museums. was published in being faced bythe new National Archives ofCanada May. Issue 2. on Colle~ Software in and declares the rights of archivists to be enfranchis­ archives and museumswill e availablein ed inthe requirements definition t>tocessesforinfor­ August. The fall issue will be devoted to the mation~ms serving all aetiviueswitbintheiror­ requirementsforcollectionsm~ement. It ganizations. On pages 15-16. I introduce the Plan­ will discuss not only the information needs ning Committee on DescriptiveStandardsand their ofcollectionsmanagers and define software plans (whatmy Smithsonian colle~es were fond of ~ms to meetthem. butalso examinethe Chiding me byca11iJJg "plan-plans"). relationship between co11ectionsmanage­ But Canada doesn't have a monopoly- on debates mentand otberinstitutionalmissions. about descriptive standards. On pages 9-13. Usa Weber. the automation officerofthe SM. presents a TABLB OF CONTENTS discussion ofthe confusion and confiietSUlTOunding description of microforms (and. by extension. any Museum Automation at AAM 2 "copies" inanothermedium) within theframework of ARTFL and Textual Archives 4 the MARC Formats for Bibli~hic Descri¢on. If the detai1stend attimes tobehairsplitting. itfefleets Tom Brown on: the ~lem oftaying to define a ~icdescriptive I-ASSIST Conference 5 cataloging rule to meetthe needs Of a V8riety ofuser ACA Conference 7 communities. No single. "logically consistent" view seems to do for all. Letters to the Editor 8 This. of course. isthe challenge faced by museum Standards 8 informationprofessionals whose situationis the sub­ jectofmyreflections on the AAM me~ which was Lisa Weber on: JUst held inSan Francisco (p.24). Amidst some Describing Microforms: 9 promising developmentsininformationstandards and some tentativeofferings of computer software. the John McDonald on: chaos of Babble. each with his or her own language. Electronic Records &. the new reigned. And yet. there was a sense of promise inthe National Archives of Canada 14 air. of a new beginning I am delighted to be running letters to the editor. Canadian Descriptive Standards 15 The interest. controversy. and information exch~e Conferences 16 potential ofthe first issueis immenselygratifying.-1 In-Box 17 hope thatthe requests for dialog issued by each ofthe Software Briefs 20 aufhors of pieces in this issue Will find an equally responsive audience. Capturing Rich Contexts 22 The contributions I received to this issue are doubly Report on Col1ecting Software 24 Museum Automation at the AAM only important if we want to communicate with by David Bearman anyone, and then reported on how the project she directs. AVIADOR, has make use of both AACR2 I think we will come to see the year that the (library community cataloging standards) and American Association of Museums met in San the AAT. Eleanor Fink, reported in the use of Francisco as a watershed in museum automation. MARC by the Index of American Sculpture and Although there was a certain immaturity expos­ the development of shared data definitions be­ ed in the balance of sessions (only one session tween that project, the Index of American Paint­ devoted specifically to mainline automation con­ ing and several other art database projects at the cerns out of four overall, with the others dedicat­ Smithsonian National Museum of American Art. ed to CD. digital color imaging, and artificial The MARC format was serving well as a means for intelligence), automation emerged as a full­ inter-system data sharing. fledged partner in the professionalization of Lenore Sarasan of Willoughby Associates was registrars and collections managers. The same to present the "devils advocate" position. But as immaturity was evident on the exhibit floor. she argued that standards could be developed by where systems accessing videodisc or digitized users of commercial systems. and presented the images attracted more attention than a five digit work her firm was doing in developing common numeric field in a database deserves. Yet some of data dictionaries and authority files for clients. the systems being displayed were practical and it was evident that this sphere of standardiza­ could be implemented essentially as is. And al­ tion did for those users exactly what profession­ though it was clear that most AAM members are wide standards might do for all museums. Lenore still lost in the present of automation. it was evi­ revealed that any argument about the need for dent that an adequate number can not only see standards in the museum community is no longer the outlines of a future but are taking actions to about ends, but about tactics. assure that it evolves according to a profession­ Two promising tactical developments were ally dictated plan. featured in sessions. The first. already briefly mentioned, is the revision of Nomenclature by a Sessions: committee (albeit self-appointed) representing a While many attendees wlliiong remember the range of museums which have used the classifica­ extraordinarlly crisp color images presented by tion system. More important than the second HowlU'd Besser and the experimental digitizing edition itself (although it will improve on the systems at the University of California. or the de­ first). is the self-conscious discussion which the lightful tour of artificial intelligence pastures group generated about the purposes of an in Stuart Dreyfus' keynote address. the museum hierarchical classification system and the differ­ profession will be influenced over the longer run ence between those ends and the aims of an index­ by the dialog begun in three sessions devoted to ing vocabulary. While the discussion at the ses­ discussions of evolving information exchange sion itself did not resolve the purpose of the new standards. edition. it paved the way for increasingly sophis­ The one session explicitly devoted to museum ticated discussions of the aims of different types information standards, chaired by Deirdre Stam. of standards. focused the issues. Toni Petersen (editor of the The third session was a report to the commun­ Art and Architecture Thesaurus) spoke to the ity by participants in the spring Conference on a very concept of a standard as something support­ Common Agenda for History Museums. sponsored ed by numerous agencies and not subject to uni­ by the Smithsonian Institution. The meeting was lateral change. Recognizing that standards are held to identify actions required in four areas: expensive to maintain, she insisted that they are collections, collaboration. interpretation and essential in our complex society. She then pre­ documentation. The working groups will be con­ sented the AAT as a potential vocabulary stand­ tinued under a broader umbrella of the AASLH ard. Jim Blakaby reported on the efforts of a in the next year, but their two day output is it­ committee involved in revision of Cbenball's self exceptionally promising. especially in the Nomenclature. a topic to which he had previously difficult area of common databases and document­ addressed himself in a session devoted strictly ation where the group launched a survey of the to the revision process. He presented Chenhall data fields currently used by history museums as a classification system, which could be a as a first step towards normalizing the data in a standard while being open to local addition of data dictionary which could help museums to specific terms at the lower levels. Angela Gira" plan for common documentation. The modesty of of the Avery Art Index. noted that standards are the effort bodes well for its ultimate success. as 2 Archival Informatics Newsletter voL 1, #2 does the openness of the subcommittee to a per­ collection or a modest history or archeology mus­ missive data standard. The conference report eum. Only the US Park Service DBase III System, will be published in fuB by the AASLH this fall. which is too limited and unsupported to be taken seriously as an option for others, and the Oracle­ Systems: based MYMSY (Willoughby) are built on commer­ Six museum information retrieval/cataloging cial DBMS's. The others have a few startling systems were exhibited at San Francisco along weaknesses as a consequence. with numerous membership/development. finan­ At present the vendors of museum software cial, ticketing. shipping and other applications. products are not doing a very good job of differen­ With the exception of a new offering from QL tiation themselves, in part. it appears, because Systems (The Volunteer Management System), I they do not tnow the capabilities of their compe­ will restrict this report to comparing these six. tition. Each claims to be better able to support a First. because it is too good to pass up. I want museum because of their experience in museums. to share my enthusiasm about the QL product but none can point to more than a handful of in­ ($399; $299 from AAM to AAM Members). The stallations of their present system. There is a Volunteer Management System is, simply, the definite tendency to mislead naive users about best human resource management package devot­ the virtues of operating systems (Plct vs. Concur­ ed to this tedious but critical function I've ever rent DOS, vs. MS-DOS vs.