Many interesting replies so far.  Thanks.

I have a question for Diana at the Whitney, who says

"We are hoping to create an archive of the ephemera,
brochures, catalogues, the press kits, the programming, events, rights
info, etc. but also to make this information available and downloadable
to all APPROPRIATE museum staff via their desktop, when necessary!"

Diana, how do you set the security for the documents linked to the TMS
Exhibitions record?  And what departments do you consider "appropriate" for
having access to the documents?  These two remarks spoke to the primary
reason for my original query to the group.  Some of us are a bit uneasy
about letting everybody see all these documents.

Jenny Wilker
Philadelpia Museum of Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Diana Lada ( [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 11:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Exhibitions!


Hi Jenny,

At the Whitney we use our loan and exhibition modules religiously but
our registars do end up using ACCESS for all logistical data because of
the ease in manipulating information....we can't get them to consider
alternative ways. On the flip side, we have begun to consider ways to
integrate the output of other departments and relating their work back
to the exhibition record...we're still testing.

Our goal is to integrate exhibition and loan information, and each
departments' output as it relates to the exhibition, into the Exhibition
Record in TMS. We are hoping to create an archive of the ephemera,
brochures, catalogues, the press kits, the programming, events, rights
info, etc. but also to make this information available and downloadable
to all APPROPRIATE museum staff via their desktop, when necessary!

Some of the issues that have come up for us: 1)most importantly, server
space! Image related documents and hi-res images can be quite large and
we are looking at not only making them accessible via TMS [one example
that comes up are the wall labels] but also archiving on our server. A
terrabyte doesn't get you very far we have found! 2) security and
appropriate staff access 3) developing a protocol for who is responsible
for what to attach to each exhibition record, where to save it on the
server 4) how not to slow down the database and 5) reports! [always a
favourite for us!]...and I'm sure tomorrow a few more things will crop
up.

But we are quite excited at the possibilities...
Good luck!
Diana


Diana Lada-L'Henaff
Documentation Manager

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
New York, NY  10021

t: 212.570.3671
f: 212.570.4171
e: [log in to unmask]