MS-ACCESS, collections software

There is another Microsoft product, Visual Foxpro, that I believe should be mentioned here. MS-Visual Foxpro has all of the advantages of MS-Access with none of the limitations. It supports unlimited searchable data fields and allows you to have 1 Billion records. Visual Foxpro includes Microsoft’s Rushmore data access technology, which lets you to search large databases hundreds of times faster.

Unlike Access, Visual Foxpro is a true object-oriented programming language that supports ODBC, OLE-Active-X, SQL-Oracle server implementation, web searching and publication, and imaging. As a professional programmer, I have created applications in both Access and Visual Foxpro and find them very similar to work with. If you have experience with dBase, Foxpro may be easier since the language is an extension of dBase. The only thing better about Access is the price. Foxpro will cost you about $500.

I would also like to affirm what has already been said about data portability. Since Access is a mainstream database it is a good place to keep your data. I’m afraid we must all admit the Microsoft is in control for now, therefore your data is probably safest in one of their products. Access, Excel, Visual Foxpro. While other products may be great, you have to be concerned about how long they will be around. Q&A for DOS was a excellent database from Symantec, but their new Windows product has not been well received and should cause some concern. Also, I agree with Daniel Robert that when choosing proprietary collection management software, you should be concerned about the underlying data structure that will hold your data. As the person who converted Arkansas State University’s data from classic Argus, I must say it would have been a much easier if it had been in Access.

And one final note for those who have the time to create your own system with Access or other tools, it is very important that you use standard field names. No matter what program the data is in, to convert it to another system, the fields must be matched up. It may seem nice that you have the flexibility to create fields for your specific needs. BUT, that won’t help when you want to convert or share your data with other institutions. There are standards out there and anyone designing a museum catalog database should try to adhere to them.

At 10:55 AM 07/02/1998 -1000, Rick Hilton wrote: I would also like to affirm what has already been said about data portability. Since Access is a mainstream database it is a good place to keep your data. I'm afraid we must all admit the Microsoft is in control for now, therefore your data is probably safest in one of their products. <<<< Microsoft does indeed seem to be in control. However, I question whether that makes it the only really safe solution. As long as a database package's storage format is ODBC-compatible (and assuming that you've taken the precaution of providing yourself a with a copy of the matching ODBC driver), you should not have to worry about being to transfer your data to another system; any other ODBC-compatible database software (including Access) should be able to read it. Unlike some software companies, the ODBC standard is well enough entrenched that it is unlikely to disappear any eon soon.

Other than this, the only major caveat that I would suggest is that really funky special field types provided by one database package, but not common in others, should be used with caution. Doing field type conversions before you can transfer your data can be a major waste of time!

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Texas Memorial Museum Phone: 512-232-4263, 471-1604 V.P. Lab, J.J. Pickle Research Campus Fax: 512-471-5973 University of Texas, 10100 Burnet Road, Austin, TX 78758-4445

As a recent list subscriber, I would appreciate directions to these database field 'standards'. Particularly something available on line or a publication accessible in this part of the world.

Gary Vines

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''' Gary Vines, Industrial Archaeologist/Curator Melbourne's Living Museum of the West Inc. P.O. Box 60 Highpoint City, Victoria, Australia, 3032. Telephone (613) 9318 3544 Fax (613) 9318 1039
http://www.livingmuseum.org.au

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