Articles by Douwtje van der Meulen

The conservation section of the Antiquities Department in the Ashmolean Museum is currently developing a database for the conservation treatment records as well as the photographs and x-rays, using image processing equipment. 4th Dimension First was chosen for the database as this was the only off the shelf software available at the time, that was capable of handling both text and image based data. The article describes the design of the text database and discusses the positive and negative aspects of the software package as experienced by the conservation team. Also mentioned are applications of the database and its future developments such as the design of the image database. To conclude about the database package, 4D First is a versatile program with a large amount of options, although not always straightforward and user friendly to begin with, it was found that it certainly would do the job well.