Running head: DATABASE ENVIRONMENT: ART MUSEUM

Database Environment: Art Museum

DATABASE ENVIRONMENT: ART MUSEUM

Database Environment: Art Museum

The Existing Database Environment
Automation and digital record keeping has saved museums valuable time over the last
years. However curators of small museums have difficulties finding a computerized collection
management system that fits their needs, as professional systems are more than they need, more
than they can support as well as afford. Therefor it is crucial to identify the organizations
problems and constraints to develop a database that addresses those issues. Utilizing a
computerized collection management system will reveal how inefficient and inconsistent paper
records and spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel were and show how intricate and diverse
collections could be catalogued and indexed quickly, efficiently, and inexpensively (Baron,
1988). According to Solutions For Corporate And Small Museum Collections (2014), A
quality system generates concise and comprehensive reports and can easily locate and track the
movement of works in the collection. With this kind of system, users can quickly and
automatically perform tasks that were once complicated and time-consuming, including many
that before were not even possible (para. 2).
Problems and Constraints
The Art Museum is currently using a combination of paper-based documents and
computerized spreadsheets created with Microsoft Excel to inventory and track their artwork,
artists, and location where the art is displayed or stored within the museum. According to Teach
ICT (2012) website the disadvantages of paper-based databases are:

Limited by physical storage space availability

Time consuming while searching through records manually

Difficult to search for a specific criteria

DATABASE ENVIRONMENT: ART MUSEUM

Difficult to analyze data

Difficult to sort data on more than one criteria

Changes have to be performed manually. Records can start looking messy if

scribbled out / on

Records can be lost / misfiled

Only form of security would be locking up records

Difficult to create backups, as pages would have to be re-written / photocopied

The issue with spreadsheets for record keeping is that it might seems easy to link workand spreadsheets together, the more multifaceted the work gets, the more demanding it is to
manage as well as update all those work- and spreadsheets. Another disadvantage of using a
spreadsheet software such as Excel is that only one person at a time can manipulate the data
within those spreadsheets. Using a relational database such as Microsoft Access also allows to
set specific user-level security access which can protect sensitive data as well as prevent users
from unintentionally or intentionally changing tables, queries, forms, etc.
Objectives of the Database Environment
At this point we identified some of the existing problems that the Art Museum faces with
their way of record keeping. Now we need to define the objectives which describe the specific,
tangible product that this project will deliver. According to Management Hub (2014),
objectives of database management in an organization should be share-ability, availability,
evolve-ability as well as integrity (para. 1). Some of the other objectives specific to this project
identification of the artiest to the correlation artwork, location of the artwork within the museum,
as well as classification. This database will allow the museum to generate reports that will

DATABASE ENVIRONMENT: ART MUSEUM

provide the requested information. At this point the new solution will not interface with other
systems within the company and does not have to share data with other systems.
Scope and Boundaries
Because this museum is a non-profit organization with no existing database yet, the
government has agreed to pay for hardware and software that is required to provide the museum
with a usable computerized collection management system that addresses all the listed
objectives, as long as this program is completed prior to January 1st, 2015.
Data Specifications
The entities that are required to ensure that database will function are:

Artist:
o Artist_ID
o Artist_First_Name
o Artist_Last_Name
o Artist_DOB

Artwork:
o Artwork_ID
o Artwork_Name
o Artist_ID

Location:
o Location_ID
o Artwork_ID
o Location_Name

DATABASE ENVIRONMENT: ART MUSEUM

This database design will provide the art museum with easily retrievable information on how
many art works are currently on display for specific artists, as well as where they are located
within the gallery.

DATABASE ENVIRONMENT: ART MUSEUM

References
Baron, R. B. (1988). The SWAP Project - Building A Museum Database from the Bottom
Up. Retrieved from http://www.studiolo.org/MusComp/SWAP/SWAP.htm#Outline
Management Hub. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.management-hub.com/databasemanagement-objectives.html
Solutions for Corporate and Small Museum Collections . (2014). Retrieved from
http://www.artsystems.com/solutions/instcoll.htm#small
Teach ICT. (2012). Computerised Vs paper-based databases. Retrieved from http://www.teachict.com/ks3/year7/data_handling/miniweb/pg3.htm