Cataloging software for medals and jewels

[wm5806]

I am currently investigating the merits of different software packages to catalogue both my personal collection and that of the embryonic museum that I am responsible for. Although there seems to be a lot of software written for coin collectors and (military) medal collectors, I cannot seem to find anything suitable for my purposes.

I know it is unrealistic to expect an off-the-shelf package, but many of the collectors' software packages claim to be customisable for your own requirements. I found one that did almost everything I want but wasn't customisable and the other was good, but kept resetting my screen resolution in an incredibly irritating and inconvenient manner.

Although reasonably able in a Windows environment, I have never really dabbled with MS Access and am certainly not a programmer...

Your suggestions would be most gratefully received and applied!

(If this is covered in another area of the GMIC, my apologies, but please point me in the right direction)

[Ed_Haynes]

You're looking for something specific to Masonic medals? Heck, it is hard enough to find anything that work for medals!!

[wm5806]

You're looking for something specific to Masonic medals? Heck, it is hard enough to find anything that work for medals!!

Hi Ed,

No, doubt I would find anything specific to Masonic items as no-one can have claimed to have catalogued them all. I just wanted something that I could customise the fields for so that Lodge name, number, inscription etc could all be recorded.

Would still value any suggestions.....

[Ed_Haynes]

All I have used is a very unsatisfactory thing I tinkered together in MS Access.

[wm5806]

Yup,

That's exactly what Kgard the Wise suggestedin an email (I suspect to spare my public blushes). I have never really played with Access (although am pretty good at using Excel as a flatform database) and find the prospect rather daunting.

WM5806

[Ed_Haynes]

Access is daunting, Access is a pain, I think it is intended to be that way. If you want, I can rummage up what I have been using and send it along to see what it will do for you.

[wm5806]

As this is mainly for our museum, I may want to include a few fields that those cataloging a personal collection may not need, but these are the sort of things I thought about including:

ID

Degree

Type of jewel

Lodge Name

Lodge No

Province

Town

Constitution

Date awarded

Description

Inscription

Material

HM Assay Office

HM date

Maker

Height (mm)

Width (mm)

Date acquired

Acquired from

Date disposed

Disposed to

Approx value

Bought for

Sold for

Stock value

Which might appear rather over-doing it, but I would rather get it righ first time by over-doing it, than miss things off and have to go back over everything, adding information.

Can anyone think of anything I have missed, please?

What sort of reports should I be able to produce (details)?

Thanks in anticipation,

WM5806

[Humber]

If you follow the basic protocol 'access' is the easiest way to install/create a customised flat-bed database

www.geekgirls.com/databasics_02.htm