Reference Request
Finding Aids to Records of Professional Societies in the Smithsonian Institution Archives
Record Unit 7432
Museum Computer Network
Records, 1967-1988
Collection Overview
| General Information About This Collection | |
|---|---|
| Repository: | Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C. Contact us at osiaref@si.edu. |
| Creator: | Museum Computer Network |
| Title: | Records |
| Dates: | 1967-1988 |
| Quantity: | 26 cu. ft. (26 record storage boxes) |
| Collection: | Record Unit 7432 |
| Language of Materials: | English |
| Summary: | These records contain the administrative files kept primarily by David Vance, Ron Kley, and Deirdre Stam. The records concern the daily operations of MCN including preparation of the journal Spectra; planning for annual conferences and workshops; correspondence; grant proposals; annual reports; materials concerning Griphos, membership surveys; and publications concerning computerization. |
Historical Note
The Museum Computer Network promotes the use of computer technology by museums. It was established in 1967 by a consortium of New York City museums. In its early years it focused on the development of an object-cataloging database system called Griphos. This system was designed to enable creation of a union catalog of museum objects. In 1972 the consortium was incorporated into the nonprofit Museum Computer Network (MCN) headed by David Vance. Until 1978 MCN functioned as a Griphos users group, but by that year Griphos had become obsolete and MCN opened itself up to users of other computer systems. In 1985 Ron Kley became president and acting executive director until 1988 when Deirdre Stam became executive director.
Descriptive Entry
This collection contains the administrative files kept primarily by the executive directors. The records concern the daily operations of a nonprofit professional organization including preparation of the journal Spectra, planning for annual conferences and workshops, correspondence, grant proposals, annual reports, member surveys, and publications concerning computerization.
Index Terms
This collection is indexed under the following access terms. These are links to collections with related topics, persons or places.
Name
- Griphos (computer database system)
- Kley, Ron
- Spectra (Serial)
- Stam, Deirdre Corcoran
- Vance, David, 1926-
Subject
Physical Characteristics of Materials in the Collection
Administrative Information
Preferred Citation
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7432, Museum Computer Network, Records
Container List
Box 1
Museum Data Bank Coordinating Committee, "Griphos Package Description," September 1973.
David Vance, "Manual for Museum Computer Network Data Preparations," 1975.
David Vance, "Manual for Museum Computer Network Griphos Application," 1976.
David Vance, "Griphos Users' Guide," 1979.
Benjamin Suchoff, "A Griphos Application of Bartok's Turkish Folk Music Material," 1975.
Scott Abbey, "Griphos as a Relational Data Base System," Ph.D. dissertation, 1975.
M. Stephen Erik Lipka, "Queries and Relations in the Griphos system," Ph.D. dissertation, 1975.
Harvey David Lowy, "Design of a Distributed Data Base Management System for a Homogeneous Distributed Commuter Network," Ph.D. dissertation, 1976.
David Vance, "Structure and Content of a Museum Data Bank," 1970.
David Vance, for IBM, "Computers in the Museum," 1973.
IBM, "Building a Collection Data Bank and Museum Computer Network," 1970.
David Vance and Jack Heller, "Structure and Content of a Museum Data Bank," 1971.
David Vance, "Museum Computer Network: Progress Report," The Museologist, 1975.
David Vance, "Museum Computer Network: The Second Phase," Museum News, May 1970.
Wilford P. Cole, "Computers: Second Thoughts on the Second Phase," Museum News, June 1970.
"Museums and Computers: Strange Bedfellows," Museum News, 1973.
The New Yorker, article mentioning MCN, April 1973.
David Vance, "The Unfinished Story of the Museum Computer Network," Educom, Fall 1975.
David Vance, "Networking in the Arts," Special Libraries Association, Bulletin, Fall 1975.
"Computers and Archaeology: An AFFA Colloquium," Journal of Field Archaeology, 1976.
"Cataloguing Photographs by Computer," International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, 1978.
Benjamin Suchoff, "A Program for the Establishment of New Computer Techniques in the Accessioning, Cataloguing, and Permuting of Research Materials at the Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies," 1974.
MCN, Annual Meeting, Program, 1984.
MCN, Annual Meeting, Registration and Inquiries, 1984.
MCN, Annual Meeting, 1983.
MCN, Annual Meeting, Advance Registration, 1983.
MCN, Annual Meeting, 1982.
MCN, Annual Meeting, Registration, 1981.
MCN, Annual Meeting, Income and Expenses, 1980.
MCN, Annual Meeting, Income and Expenses, 1979.
MCN, By-Laws, as amended, May 1, 1979.
MCN, Publicity, 1972, 1980, 1983-1984.
MCN, Annual Meeting, 1984.
MCN, Annual Meeting, 1983.
MCN, Prospectus, 1982-1983.
MCN, Annual Meeting, 1982.
MCN, Annual Meeting, 1981.
Box 2
MCN, National Museum Act Application Grant, 1976-1977 (4 folders).
Columbia Broadcasting System, request for funds, 1974-1979.
MCN, Annual Meetings and Meetings of the Board of Directors, 1979-1981.
Access, software application system for museums, 1971.
Adhoc, software application system for museums, 1982.
AIIMS, software application system for museums, 1978.
Artlog, software application system for museums, 1980.
Daris, software application for museums, 1982.
Art Object Locator System, 1977.
Databasics, 1985.
Museum Information System workshop, 1980.
Judith Dupre/Artwork.
GEAC
Cultural Systems Division.
Report on a national cataloging system for ethnological collections, 1970.
Gipsy package description, Museum Data Bank Coordinating Committee, 1973.
GIS package descriptions, Museum Data Bank Coordinating Committee, 1974.
Corner Stone, 1984.
Computerized Catalog System, 1973.
Istare, 1982.
Laventhal and Horwath, museum consultants, 1980.
CURATOR (dbms).
The Detroit Institute of Arts, Art Registration/Identification System, Definition Phase report, 1978.
SATIN 1, French, 1974, 1978.
SIIR, SELGEM.
SELGEM Package Description, Museum Data Bank Coordinating Committee, 1973.
Systems Capital Corporation, 1982.
Phillip S. Humphrey and Ann C. Clausen, "Automated Cataloging for Museum Collections," Association of Systematics Collection.
Sofia, France, 1974.
Box 3
Correspondence and documentation on museum computer systems and projects, worldwide, arranged alphabetically by city, c. 1967-1975: Albany - New Orleans
Box 4
Correspondence and documentation on museum commuter systems and projects, worldwide, arranged alphabetically by city, circa 1967-1985: New York City (Museum of Broadcasting) - Rome, Italy
Box 5
Correspondence and documentation on museum commuter systems and projects, worldwide, arranged alphabetically by city, circa 1967-1985: New York City (Museum of the City of New York) -Rome (Italy)
Correspondence and documentation on museum computer systems and projects, worldwide, arranged alphabetically by city, circa 1967-1985: Rome (Italy), cont'd - Washington, D.C. (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden)
Box 6
[no longer exists]
Box 7
Correspondence and documentation on museum computer systems and projects, worldwide, arranged alphabetically by city, circa 1967-1985: Washington, D.C., cont'd (Marine Corps Museum) - Williamstown
Federation for Natural Sciences, collection research meeting, Manchester Museum, 1984.
Correspondence and newsletters pertinent to museum activities in automation: Federation Internationale de Documentation - Carl G. Allen (International Foundation for Technology in the Humanities)
Box 8
Correspondence and newsletters pertinent to museum activities in automation: International Archive of Art
[At this point organization breaks down, and there appears to be no order. This is probably due to the original boxes being out of order. The remainder of the series probably continues later; another series also begins later and is taken up in the following order.]
ISIS
Kress Foundation
MESH, 1973-1977
MDBC, 1972-1977
A. W. Mellon Foundation
Mid-Atlantic States Arts Consortium
Modern Language Association
Museum Data Bank Research Report, 1-10, 12
Museum Data Bank Projects
Museum Documentation Association
Museological Word-List, Hungary
Dictionarium Museologicum, Hungary, 1979, 1981
Alphabetical List of Descriptors, International Council of Museums (ICOM), 1984
E. Elein, "Scientific Documentation," 1968, Museum and Research, ICOM.
ICOM, International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC), Program, 1980.
ICOM/ ICOM-CIDOC, 1967-1969.
ICOM/ CIDOC, Working Party on the Documentation of Museum Collections, 1977.
ICOM/ CIDOC, "Terminology."
ICOM/ CIDOC, "Technical Standards Working Group," 1985.
ICOM / CIDOC, Bulletins.
ICOM / CIDOC, Working Paper, Secondary Lists of Data Categories, 1980.
Box 9
South African Museum Association, Documentation Group, 1973, 1985.
Museum Documentation Association, England, 1985
D. A. Robert, "Planning the Documentation of Museum Collections," 1983.
Museum Documentation Association, England, 1976-1985, David Vance book review, 1984.
Information Retrieval Group of the Museums Association, IRGMA Record Cards, 1976.
Box 10
Organizations (material):
American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta
Archives and Documentation Centers for Modern and Contemporary Art, and Bulletin
Museum Documentation Association (documentation systems and occasional papers) (Folder 1 of 2)
Box 11
Museum Documentation Association (documentation systems and occasional papers) (Folder 2 of 2)
American Society for Information Science
Computer and the Humanities
Dia Art Foundation
Educom
Articles, proceedings, studies about computers and museums arranged alphabetically by author: Scott Abbey - Virginia Burton
Box 12
Organizations (material): Mary Ann Calo - New York Public Library
Box 13
Articles, proceedings, studies about commuters and museums arranged alphabetically by author: Akitumi Oikawa - Derryl Young
Journals regarding scientific investigations:
Instituto de Investigaciones sobre Recursos Bioticos, Xalapa, Veracruz
Bioteca, 1979-1984
Box 14
Instituto de Investigaciones sobre Recursos Bioticos, Xalapa, Veracruz
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Social History and Industrial Classification
Outline of Cultural Materials
Kenneth Willard Maxwell, "Interactive Imaging Systems," M.S. thesis, University of Colorado, 1985
Italian journals on automation
The Film Catalog: A List of Holdings in the Museum of Modern Art, 1985, using GRIPHOS
A Guide to Inventorying Ethnological Collections, edited by Mary Jane Schneider, 1970
Reference manual for machine-readable bibliographic description, UNESCO, 1981
A Universal Slide Classification System with Automatic Indexing, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1969
Film Cataloguing Manual: A Computer System, Museum of Modern Art, 1979
James A Peters, MUDPIE (Museum and University Data, Program and Information Exchange), 1968-1972
"Commuter Applications to Collection Management in Herpetology and Ichthyology," Alan Leviton et al., 1982
Materialien ausdem Institute fur Museums kunde SMPK Berlin
Box 15
Publications on automated collections in museums:
Mammal collections in North America
Geology in Great Britain (bibliography and index)
German publications on archeology, folklore, museum collections
Museum Document Association Publications
Computerized Inventory Standards for Works of Art, conference, 1979
Material from Museo Nacional de Antropologia, 1969-1977
Newsletter of Computer Archeology, 1972
Museum Computer Conference, 7" audio tape, lecture seven (?), Ruth Bowman, undated
Box 16
Newsletter of Computer Archeology.
Bibliography cards.
Report of the Conference on Computer Technology in the Humanities, 1969.
First International Conference on Automatic Processing of Art History Data and Documentation, 1978.
Second International Conference on Automatic Processing of Art History Data and Documentation, 1984.
Robert G. Chenall, Museum Cataloguing in the Computer Age.
Conference, Computers and their Potential Applications in Museums, 1968.
Using the UTM Grid System to Record Historic Sites, 1977.
Commuters and Cultural Materials Conference, 1982.
Box 17
All in Order: Information Systems for the Arts, 1981.
IBM Reports on: Building a Collection Data Bank at Museum Computer Network, 1970; Computers in Anthropology and Archeology, 1971; Computers in the Museum, 1973; and Introduction to Computers in the Humanities, 1971
IBM, Perspective in Computing, 1982, 1985.
Educom, Networks and Disciplines, 1973.
MCN audio tapes, conference, 1980.
SELGEM manual, workbook.
Stairs.
Stipple.
International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship, 1983. Articles on computerization.
TAXIR.
Village Systems.
Central Federal, 1974-1978 (savings account).
Chase Manhattan Bank, 1973-1984.
Kranz and Company, auditors, 1976-1985.
State University New York accounts, 1967-1986.
Box 18
New York State Bureaucracy, 1977-1983 (state returns)
IRS, 990, 990A, 1974-1984.
Tax Exemption.
Auditors' Report and Financial Statements, 1977-1985.
Finance, Old MCN, 1969-1970.
Budgets, FY 1967-FY 1969.
Institute of Conservation and Methodology of Museums, Information en, 1974-1979.
L'Automatisation Documentaire en France, 1966-1967.
Task Force, MCN, AAM, UNESCO, 1979-1980.
New York State Council on the Arts (MCN grant proposal), 1974-1975.
National Museum Act (MCN grant proposal), 1977.
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) (MCN grant proposal), 1977.
Box 19
MCN Workshop, 1974 (1974-1977).
IBM correspondence, 1967-1977, and publication, "An Information System for American Museums," 1969.
MCN Data Sheets.
MCN correspondence, 1967-June 1968.
MCN correspondence, July 1968-1971.
MCN and New York University (NYU) Conference, 1970.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Computer Conference, 1968.
MCN/IBM Report, 1968.
MCN correspondence, minutes, policy statement, 1976-1978.
MCN correspondence, presidential report, minutes, 1972-1976.
MCN/Center for Contemporary Arts and Letters Planning Conference, 1980.
National Planning Conference for Cultural Resource Management and Preservation, 1978.
National Endowment for the Arts, 1968-1970.
New England Museum Association.
Netherlands.
Network for Information Retrieval in Mammalogy.
National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services, Conference, 1980.
Box 20
Museum Computer Network / Center for Contemporary Arts and Letters, Planning Conference, 1980.
National Planning Conference for Cultural Resource Management and Preservation, 1978.
National Endowment for the Arts, 1968-1986.
Smithsonian Institution/New England Museum Association, Computerization for Museum Collections, 1983.
NEMA Workshop, Collection Records and Micro-Computers, 1984.
Northeast Museums Conference, 1978, 1979.
Museum Documentation in the Netherlands, 1979-1980.
Network for Information Retrieval in Mammalogy, 1975.
National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services, "Indexing Museum Collections," David Vance, 1980.
National Science Foundation, 1983.
New York State Council on the Arts, 1976-1982.
OCLC
Ontario Museum Association, 1983.
Oxford Seminar, 1983.
Oxford Text Archive.
Patent Office, 1982.
Public Archives of Canada.
Various Working Papers prepared under the Public Archives of Canada.
RAHN (Zurich).
Regional Conference of Historical Agencies, 1982-1984.
Quodata, 1982-1983.
Research Libraries Group.
New York (CCNY, CUNY) RIDIM (RILM), 1973-1978.
RILA, 1977-1981.
Reynolds, R. J., 1976.
Society for American Archaeology, 1976.
Box 21
Science Associates, 1976-1977.
Society for Information and Documentation, 1978.
Sloan Foundation, 1977.
System Development Foundation, 1982.
The Arts, Culture and Technology, 1981, 1985.
Twentieth Century Fund, 1969.
Visual Resources Association, 1986.
Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, 1986.
Wenner-Gren Foundation, 1971-1977.
Wetzel, 1981.
"Griphos Users' Guide," David Vance, 1979.
Incoming and Outgoing Correspondence:
Smithsonian, 1968-1977
W, General
XYZ, General
SA-SC, 1974-1983
SD-SZ
T, General
U, V General
N General
O General
Q General
R General
New York City (2 Folders)
New Haven (Yale Center for British Art)
M General
Box 22
K General
L General
H-J General (3 folders)
E General
Fayetteville (Arkansas Archaeological Survey)
F-G General (2 folders)
Cologne (Kunst-u. Museumbibliothek)
C-D General (2 folders)
B General
Bowling Green, Kentucky (Western Kentucky University)
C-Chicago (miscellaneous)
Augusta, Maine (Maine State Museum Commission)
A General
Box 23
"Manual for Museum Computer Network Data Preparation," 1975, David Vance.
Spectra (there may be extra copies): Volume 1, number 1 (1974); volume 2, numbers 1-2; volume 3, numbers 1-4; volume 4, numbers 1-4; volume 5, numbers 1-4 (number 2 missing); volume 6, numbers 1-4; volume 7, numbers 1-4; volume 8, numbers 1-4; volume 9, volumes 1-4; number 10, volumes 1-4; volume 11, numbers 1-4; volume 12, numbers 1-4 (number 3 missing); volume 13, numbers 1-4; volume 14, number 1.
McNews pamphlet, 1984.
MCN Brochure, 1981.
One envelope, unorganized correspondence, 1985, along with membership cards.
One envelope, return to sender, along with additional names and addresses of members (?).
One envelope, accounts, 1985.
Volume 12, number 2, draft.
Volume 13, number 1, draft.
Correspondence files, 1984-1986, A-R (21 folders).
Correspondence files, S-Z (7 folders).
Box 24
[no longer exists]
Box 25
Mexico (anthropology).
Hamilton, Ontario.
Jewish Museum.
Albright-Knox.
Semitic Museum.
Skating Hall of Fame.
Individual Members.
Individual Members, 1982-1983, 1983-1984, 1984-1985, 1985-1986 (4 folders).
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts
Denver Natural History Museum
Oklahoma Historical Society
Menil
H. F. Johnson Museum, Cornell
Ralph Forster Museum
Birmingham Art
Arkansas Consortium
Other Museums and Organizations, early correspondence, circa 1972-1983.
American Association of Museums (AAM), 1967-1980.
Box 26
AAM Council Meetings, 1981-1986.
Box 27
General Correspondence, mostly membership information:
1976-1987
By Name (9 folders)
1978-1985 (35 folders)
Membership cards (by state and museum), 1979-.
Dead Membership Cards.
Box 28
Centre National de la Recherche Archaeologique
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Informatique et Sciences Humaines
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