Using Standards to Facilitate Access and Reuse of Museum Information

Standards for dealing with electronic records must be selected based on a careful analysis of user requirements. These requlrements must take into account the long range goals of the larger community. For any particular museum this larger community could include archives and libraries, as well as other museums and the patrons of the museums. Consistent use of standards among members of the museum community would facilitate the interchange of information among systems. Further, standards allow the reuse of information. This reuse may be for the same or different purposes. This paper presents a framework for determining the needed standards for museum records management. Although options are discussed based on the Open System Environment, these are not a predetermined set of standards. The goal of this paper is to help a particular user community select appropriate standards.