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Safeguarding
Collections
Management
!
Museum professionals around the country operate their facilities, manage assets
and risk and prepare for emergencies. Understanding and planning for virtual
asset risk management needs to be part of that emergency preparedness.
Quite a number of local museums currently use the PastPerfect software package,
however it was thought appropriate to re-assess PastPerfect due to sustained
issues of the viability of its core database, Visual FoxPro as well as it’s other
issues. It is a good time to investigate a range of possible solutions.
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•
PastPerfect Software, Inc. founded 1996
•
PastPerfect 2.0 released in 1998
•
PastPerfect 3.0 released in 2001
•
PastPerfect 4.0 released in October, 2004
•
PastPerfect 5.0 released in June, 2010
Currently
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150-200 PastPerfect users in MN
•
9000 PastPerfect users Nationwide
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1.
PastPerfect uses Visual Fox Pro (VFP) as its database
2.
March
2007,
Microsoft
announced
that
there
would
be
no
VFP
10,
thus
making
VFP
9
(released
to
manufacturing
on
December
17,
2004)
the
last
commercial
release
3.
On
January
12,
2010,
mainstream
support
from
Microsoft
for
VFP
ended
4.
Extended
support
is
available,
per
policy,
through
January
13,
2015
•
PastPerfect Software, Inc. appears not have an
extended support agreement
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What does it mean?
!
Visual FoxPro's retirement by Microsoft does not
create immediate problems and in most cases
problems that develop will be gradual and relatively
easy to ignore and postpone resolutions. But these
assumptions are not a given and there are real and
potentially serious risks to organizations using
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Issues brought up to
Past Perfect Software Inc.
!
1. Potential abrupt changes. At some point Microsoft could issue a Windows Security patch or other update that breaks some aspect of Visual FoxPro which then could disable the PastPerfect program or some aspect of it.
2. New Security Requirements. One of the biggest dangers would come should new data security requirements come to an industry that VFP may be unable to meet. That is, VFP and thus PastPerfect works as designed but is no longer sufficient.
3. Compatibility with upcoming versions of Windows. While Windows 7 and 8 appear to work with VFP and PastPerfect, there is no
assurance that future versions of Windows will do so. There is also concern that issues may develop with upcoming 64-bit programs and databases that interact with VFP programs and databases. This requires PastPerfect to be in compatibility mode to function and no longer works natively.
4. Brain Drain. Smart, savvy software developers know that it is crucial to be skilled in current and marketable technologies. Therefore, the pool of all VFP programmers has diminished drastically and will continue to diminish. The pool of the very best VFP programmers has diminished the fastest.
5. Transparency - PastPerfect has not issued any statements to its user community on VFP problem. During both my times talking with PastPerfect representatives at the 2013 and 2012 AALSH Conferences their only statement was that they were aware of it and will be taking corrective action in 2-3 years (they said this each year). "Trust us" is not acceptable. It is important to provide real details and timelines.
6. Extended support is available, per policy, through January 13, 2015 However, it appears PastPerfect Software, Inc. does not have an extended support agreement.
7. Lack of Action. According a form statement sent by Client Services "As far as future development of PastPerfect, we've got our ear to the rail and continue to look for the best programing and database solutions for our 9000+ clients. When we find it, we will move PastPerfect to that new platform.” There is concern that this late in the game (over 7 years since the announcement all support would end in 2015)
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Response
On March 14, 2014 Local History Services held a
meeting with Directors of Minnesota history
organizations about the situation with past perfect.
It was agreed to set up a task force to deal with the
issue. And has been holding monthly meetings.
At Local History Service’s statewide workshops a
session was held on the situation detailing the issue
with PastPerfect and trends with thecollections
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The PastPerfect Roadmap
On Wednesday, June 11, 2014,
PastPerfect released this statement in
email to its user community and on it’s
web site.
!
!
The email to the community is
somewhat misleading as we have never
said at any of our community
workshops that Visual Foxpro (VFP), will
stop working in 2015. The real issue is
that with no support from Microsoft of
VFP it is a risk of catastrophic failure if a
Windows security patch or other update
breaks some aspect of the program or
new data security requirements come
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Additionally…
In addition to the VFP issue there are other potential serious issues that
PastPerfect needs to address to its user community:
1.
Both the founders and owners Richard Hilton and Mary Parr are
(if not already) close to retirement age.
Companies often do not survive the death, retirement or incapacity of their founders.
Harvard Business School professor Rakesh Khurana, who has written extensively about
CEO succession states: "Most firms don't survive. In tech in particular, it's like watching
fruit flies."
How will they pull off the transition of the company as well as the new software model -
Software as a Service (SaaS).
2.
PastPerfect's inclusion of member management in the same program
with collections management.
It is likely security issue having both together. For best security practice the two should
be separated. It may not be what PastPerfect users want, no one likes using passwords
either, but it is the reality of the world we live in.
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Others
1.
The Connecticut League of History Organizations
(CLHO) is doing a very similar thing. We are working
together to find a collections management system
that we can recommend to both our members.
2.
Association of Nova Scotia Museums
(ANSM) has
already moved its 51 members from Microsoft
Access to a new online open source collections
management system, Collective Access
NovaMuse – www.novamuse.ca
NovaMuse is a collection of collections that allows
users to search and navigate through some of the
collections of Nova Scotia's community museums.
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Open Source
Open source software is software whose source code
is published and made available to the public, enabling
anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the source
code without paying royalties or fees.
Open source's greatest appeal is the leveraging of
resources of the partners and the community for
“
shared value
”
creation.
The open source model provides a real tool to solve
the "do more with less" challenge facing museums.
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In the past, when the University of MN (or any other educational institution)
spent $500,000 for some system or modification to a system, the
investment provided no advantage to the Minnesota Historical Society and
other educational institutions gained little.
The open-source model
changes all of this
In open source all of us are
mutually using other people's
money (and good will) to get
and sustain the systems we
need.
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Open source license
Open source licenses are licenses that comply
with the Open Source Definition and allow
software to be freely used, modified, and shared.
A license must go through the Open Source
Initiative's (OSI) license review process.
Currently 62 Open Source Licenses approved by
the OSI
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Examples
Examples of open source licenses:
§
GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPL-3.0)
§
MIT license (MIT)
§
Apple Public Source License (APSL-2.0)
§
Microsoft Public License (MS-PL)
§
NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3 (NASA-1.3)
§
IPA Font License (IPA)
§
Educational Community License, Version 2.0
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Trends in Software:
Pricing
!
New Software Pricing Trends
!
!
Term license Software leasing
Software as Service Model
Subscription delivery of
technology
Commercial Open Source
Software made available without
license fees for usage but that
requires fees for maintenance and
support
•
No up-front license
•
Cheaper for software intended
only for short-term use
•
Ability to manage deployment
internally
•
No operational management;
no up-front license
•
Makes software accessible to
smaller companies that otherwise
could not afford the
•
IT effort
•
No up-front license
•
Control over the code
•
Ability to choose any support
provider
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PROS of Cloud Computing
•
Fast Deployment
•
Lower cost/No Capital Expense
•
Reduced IT maintenance
•
Elastic and Unlimited Scalability
•
Energy Efficiency
•
Reliability (service & data)
•
Better Resource Utilization
CONS of Cloud Computing
•
Information Security
•
Physical Security
•
Long Term Offline Storage
•
Bandwidth Bottleneck
•
Potential Vendor Lock-in
•
Lack of control during downtime
Trends in Software:
Desktop or Cloud
!
The term
‘
cloud computing
’
refers to the new computing model in which all software AND data are
stored within
‘
the cloud
’
- a metaphor for storage devices and host computers accessed via the
internet.
!
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Content management options considered feasible are as
follows:
•
Option One:
One unified, centralized catalog and
centralized data entry. (MN Digital)
•
Option Two:
Multiple standardized catalogs (one per
museum) hosted on a central server with remote access
from each museum. (CollectiveAccess/CollectionSpace)
•
Option Three:
Multiple standardized catalogs (one per
museum) held on local standalone museum computers.
(PastPerfect/Microsoft Access)
Content Management
Options
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Alternative Collection
Management Systems
!
The software packages considered most likely to meet the
museums
’
needs, accord with international best practice, and
suit the eclectic hardware held by the museums and their
volunteers are as follows:
•
PastPerfect
not open source, lack of transparency, lack of interoperability, business model & succession issues
•
CollectiveAccess
small shop & lack of administration structure, unable/unwilling to form partnerships
•
CollectionSpace
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SURVEY
Take the survey at:
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If your organization doesn’t use PastPerfect Museum Software,
what does it use to track collections?
•
Bento
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Collector Systems
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Database
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Excel
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File Maker
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Good old fashioned paperwork
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Just exploring possibilities
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Notebook of collections listings
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Our own format based on Access Paper
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Paper
!
•
Excel spreadsheets. We customized our own with Access Web
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Are there features of PastPerfect you’d like to change? If so, what would you like to change?
• 1. Description search ability in Temporary Custody,!
2. Easier ability to create and update special contact lists for special mailings.!
3. Easier ability to create inventory lists.!
4. Easier ability to create forms.!
• Additional fields in the container list - "condition" alone would be great. Avoid using 1 authority file to serve multiple fields through various catalogs.!
• Back Up in the cloud!
• I appreciated having access to my PastPerfect at home using my laptop and then adding that new information to the work computer the next day!
(Scatter/Gather). Remotely logging into my work computer is slower and I typically don't do this because of the speed.!
• I don't like the division of materials into separate databases (objects, etc.). It's annoying to have to a) classify things, and b)remember where I
classifield them (is a photo postcard in photos? or in archives? or in objects?); the fields don't all correlate between catalogs; and the location of the fields on the screen changes between catalogs (eg. dimensions in objects vs. dimension details in photos -- the information is the same, but I have to put it in different places depending on the catalog I'm in.)!
Also, my current version only shows images larger than 2 mb. so if something I scan produces an image less than that, it will show up on the item
record, but if I do a keyword search and then look at images, it will say "no image available" (because it did not create one larger than 2 mb. Well, there IS an image available, but it refuses to show it to me from the search screen.) I might like to leaf through the search results by image rather than by list of individual records, but it fails in this regard.!
I don't particularly like the choice of object names in the lexicon.!
• I wish it were more user friendly. It is really more than what our organization needs.!
• I wish the biographies in the "People" section could mesh with the bios in the Contacts section.!
I wish scatter gather would recognize the corrections I make to the People, Subjects and Search Terms list.!
• Increase the ease of adding our logo to letters. receipts, etc.!
• Reports can be difficult for novices to pull out of PP. In addition, it can be difficult to conduct a search for someone not familiar with PP in that search terms have to match precisely and be assigned to the correct fields (i.e. must plug the right name in the donor field in order to get the donor record to appear). In conducting searches, I want to be able to plug in a search term and have the software look for that term across all fields.!
• Scatter-Gather in version 5.0!
• The inability to query Accessions. I had to create a report that would let me search two separate words in Accessions. The report format is not intuitive –when we initially got the program I had to do a great deal of formatting to get it to look right and not truncate my Object descriptions, among other tweaks.!
Also, if you only put in the number for shelf (which is how we determine where anything is) nothing shows up on the main Objects Catalog if you access it via Accessions.!
The Envelope address option does not put in the correct address. I end up having to print envelopes through Word.!
• The search/query functions feel very "clunky." I also wish that it was not possible to add an item to the 4 catalogs without an accession record entered first. I find so many past records that have no connection to any kind of accession record. Backups are also very slow.!
• We have difficulty using PastPerfect on our networked laptop. It doesn't always allow full access, gives error reports, and closes.!
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Are there features you’d like to add to PastPerfect? If so, please describe.
Also spelling mistakes red-lined on the main objects page, instead of having to go through the spelling button. A
better dictionary would be nice as well. Past Perfect dictionary does not recognize plurals a lot of the time and
does not offer reasonable options for a misspelled word.
!
Highlight search words in Accessions - if you have a donation of over 300 items from one donor it can get very
frustrating having to find the one word you're looking for.
!
•
Photo tagging in the multimedia Container lists in all catalogs
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•
None that I can think of.
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•
None
!
•
It would be nice to see images of pdfs and not just jpegs. I know I can attach pdfs in the multimedia tab, but I
don't get the visual of the first page like I do with jpegs in the image management screen
!
•
I wish the research button could search accession records as well as object, photo, library and archive records
simultaneously.
!
I wish I could import files from excel without the 250 character limit.
!
•
Cross gathering of biographies of Contacts and People would be an advantage. Also to be able to add fields to
the Biography pages as necessary to include military information and organizations, etc.
!
1.
Ability to search in Temporary Custody by words.
!
2.
Ability to create or change forms in an easier manner.
!
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Do you display any of your collections data online? If so, what data do you
choose to share?
•
Accession numbers are displayed if a collections item is used online.
!
Collections data is only accessible with a membership password. We share the
archives, photo collection, artifacts (photographed), deaths, marriages, births,
probates, no confirmations, and baptisms, newspapers, cemetery records. And
our research library books.
!
•
No x 25
!
•
No but hope to.
!
•
Not yet, but hope to do so in the near future.
!
•
Not yet.
!
•
Not yet.
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•
Obituary information
!
•
Oral Histories are with Minnesota Digital Libray
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•
We don't display online yet. We would like to do so, include images and short
descriptions of the object.
!
•
We have many photos on MDL and I write blog posts featuring artifacts.
!
•
We just started our own website with limited information.
!
•
Yes, artifact description, provenance, title and subject; pictures
!
•
Yes, we have not updated in some time due to concerns about the second half of
the question.
!
•
Yes. All that we can.
!
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If you don’t share collections data online, what keeps you from doing so?
• Web mgr for our city !
• We just haven't done it !
• We don't have a complete catalogue yet. We are also trying to settle the logistics of copyright with most of the collection. !
• We are tiny and just getting started. !
• we are not far enough along to have enough to share !
• Waiting to update our website and uncertainty of costs. !
• Time, staff resources, and staff IT knowledge. !
• time, skills !
• time, skill !
• time and technical knowledge !
• Time and technical ability !
• The question of what perks should remain bundled with membership. !
• The organization doesn't share collections data online due to security reasons. This is not the feeling of all staff members, so when looking for a new collections software solution, be aware that there will be differing opinions within the same organization about whether to put collections online. An option that lets the org choose what to put online and what to keep offline would be ideal. !
• security, website data availability and cost, staff time for preparing data/what would be shared (we are still working on getting all collections data entered from paper files) !
• resources, both money and people !
• private (corporate) archives not open to the general public !
• Policy !
• online image thieves !
• Not all collection records have complete information. Time factor in preparing records for going online. !
• no staff time, cost !
• No ability to do so at this point. !
• NA !
• Manpower !
• Lack of paid staff, volunteer expertise, and/or funding !
• Just hasn't been done !
• I see no need to do so other creating more work for the staff we don't have. !
• I don't see the point of this option !
• Don't currently have Collections Management Software or Internet access. !
• Do not have the capability at this time. !
• Data privacy concerns. Also the lack of staff's ability / skill set to monitor such a task. !
• Awaiting processing completion of one collection. !
• At this point....time! Would love to get a "choice" amount of the collections data online at some point but also need to focus on getting all the collections data into the database. !
• As an independent non profit organization we rely in part on visitors to the site for revenue. Viewing our collection on line would discourage visitors. Additionally, our data base is incomplete at this time. !
