Inmagic Museum Users Group meeting

Puffing Billy at Emerald Lake Station



The first Inmagic Museum User Group meeting for 2012 was hosted by the Puffing Billy Railway Archive. Members boarded the steam train at Belgrave for the hour trip to Emerald Lake Park, plenty of time to chat with other users of DB TextWorks software in the carriage and also enjoy a light lunch.

At the station members of the group discussed a number of issues including concerns about the new cataloguing system Victorian Collections being promoted by Museums Australia (Victoria) and finding a replacement social media site for the Computers and Cataloguing My Connected Community Group (mc2) as Vicnet is closing mc2 at the end of June.  It was decided to set up a Computers and Cataloguing group in Yahoo Groups. Barbara has now left Maxus and at the beginning of the meeting she introduced Pam who will take over Barbara's former role working with smaller organisations using the software. Barbara will continue to attend our meetings.

One of the major aims of these meetings is to allow those using DB/TextWorks software for cataloguing to be able to meet and discuss issues. Many thanks to the members of the Puffing Billy Railway Archive for hosting this meeting and for providing such great hospitality.

It was then time for those who had travelled by Puffing Billy to board the train for the return trip to Belgrave. Last seen they were being served scones. It was a most successful excursion and meeting.

Puffing Billy

Information Technology and Historical Societies Report

In 2010 the Royal Historical Society of Victoria surveyed affiliated societies to investigate how they were using technology to help manage and promote their collections in Victoria.

Part of the report focussed on cataloguing software used by historical societies, small museums and allied collections.

The report also compared the results from a similar survey conducted in 2003.

A copy of the report is available on the RHSV website:
Information technology and historical societies report (2010) (pdf)

Notes from mc2 - DB TextWorks Guides

A series of guides providing information on using Inmagic DB/TextWorks databases for cataloguing

Backing up databases

Batch modify records

Delete records

Duplicate records

Help files

How to alter database structures

Importing records

Linking images

Passwords

Report forms

Search screens

Thesaurus

Validation lists

Exporting records from Excel to DBTextWorks

Exporting records

Reformatting multiple entries in fields

Notes from mc2 - Links to general cataloguing guidelines

Guidelines and forms that may be useful when cataloguing

Guidelines for computer cataloguing of information items

Photograph information form

Potential donations form

Potential donations form - reverse

Receipt

Receipt - reverse

Victorian Local History Database

Notes from mc2 - Links

Links from Computers & Cataloguing mc2

Community Heritage Grants useful links page – Includes links to organisations and papers on a variety of topics including conservation, preservation, grants, microfilming, digitisation and preservation assessments.

http://www.nla.gov.au/chg/useful-resources

Copyright & cultural institutions – guidelines for digitisation projects

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=881699

Counter code – Script to add a counter

http://www.statsmachine.com/counter.html

Image digitisation of local history collections – the manual provides a simple introduction to issues to be considered when planning & implementing digitisation projects

http://www.libraries.vic.gov.au/downloads/Victorias_Virtual_Library_Digital_Collection/manual.htm

Maxus Australia – information about DB TextWorks & other Inmagic software

http://www.maxus.net.au/

Small museums cataloguing manual – online version of this useful cataloguing tool

http://www.mavic.asn.au/resources

Care of digital collections

Electronic media collections care for small museums & archives – a Canadian website (Canadian Conservation Institute) providing guidelines on storage, reformatting and correct documentation of digital media in collections

http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/caringfor-prendresoindes/articles/elecmediacare/step1-etape1-eng.aspx

Designing and maintaining websites

http://vcourt.teesee.net/webworkshop/wsindex.html

Thesaurus

Australian pictorial thesaurus

http://www.picturethesaurus.gov.au/

Victorian local history thesaurus

http://collections.historyvictoria.com.au/rhsvdatabases/ThesApr11/index.htm

Notes from mc2 - introduction

In September 2003 a Computers & Cataloguing My Connected Community Group was formed to provide a forum for those undertaking cataloguing and computer based projects in historical societies and small museums. The mc2 group also provided the opportunity to link to relevant sites on the Internet, publicise events and share documents containing information about cataloguing and other procedures. On the 30th June 2012 Vicnet is closing the My Connected Community site so in the next few weeks relevant information from the mc2 site will be copied to this blog.

DB/TextWorks manuals

While looking for something else on the andornot blog I also found the following information on manual for those with recent copies of DB/TextWorks -

http://www.andornot.com/blog/post/DBTextWorks-Manuals.aspx

The andornot website and blog - http://www.andornot.com - is a useful resource to bookmark if using DB/TextWorks software.