[Genealib] Indexing software

[Danielle Plumer]

Daniel,
 
I'm not sure what you mean by "indexing software" for this. Are you looking for an digital asset management system (DAMS), on the lines of (but perhaps cheaper than) CONTENTdm? It looks like you're currently using Horizon for your library catalog, and there isn't a good plug-in DAMS for that. 
 
There's open source software (Greenstone) specifically for digital asset management as well as photo albums that can be used (see http://digitalcollections.georgetown.org/, though I worry about long-term metadata issues). Many libraries use simple databases to manage digital assets, and I like the DAMD solution developed by the MOAC community, which is built on FileMaker ( http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/moac/). MySQL/PHP solutions are very common -- the Digital Media Repository used at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at UT Austin is a very elaborate example ( http://www.cah.utexas.edu/db/dmr/).
 
Museums sometimes use a product called Past Perfect, which is very good for managing physical assets, though its online presentation model is somewhat lacking in my opinion (see http://www.bchm.org/Holdings/Collections/CollectionOnline/index.htm -- it's missing the outer frames, though -- institution is the Brazoria County Historical Museum). It's fairly inexpensive, by library standards, and the data can easily be exported and then moved into another system later on if needed, which is always a core concern for me. See http://www.museumsoftware.com/.



Danielle Cunniff Plumer, Coordinator
Texas Heritage Digitization Initiative
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
512.463.5852 (phone) / 512.936.2306 (fax)
dplumer at tsl.state.tx.us 

-----Original Message-----
From: genealib-bounces at mailman.acomp.usf.edu [mailto:genealib-bounces at mailman.acomp.usf.edu]On Behalf Of Daniel Sample
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 12:28 PM
To: Librarians Serving Genealogists
Subject: [Genealib] Indexing software



Greetings,

 

We are looking to begin our digitize our photograph collection, and possibly other items like our vertical files, and are looking at purchasing indexing software.  I read through the previous messages on library software, but that may do more than we really need.  If anyone has any experience or recommendations I'd appreciate hearing about it.  Also, if you think the recommendations from the library software discussion, such as www.resourcematet.com would be the best item to go with, please let me know.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel Sample

Manager, Genealogy & Local History Department

1001 Golfview

Richmond, TX 77469-5199

281-341-2646

dsample at fortbend.lib.tx.us

 

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