Series editors' preface - Wood Tools

400 Conservation of Furniture
tain an adequate backup to cover the event of
loss. Calculations and statistics based on paper
systems are prohibitively labour-intensive.
Such systems have not been properly planned,
coordinated or controlled and do not permit
the kind of shared use that is essential to
ensure the required flow of data around or
between organizations. Information systems
should therefore be developed with automation
in mind.
A good documentation system will be maintained
in an accurate, complete, concise and
up-to-date condition to provide the right information
to the right people in timely fashion.
Institutional systems should conform to institution-wide
data standards and allow monitoring
and control of terminology and validation of
items such as dates and codes at the point of
entry of data into the system.
In an automated system, periodic audits can
be undertaken to ensure the integrity of the
data. Conflicting requirements of different
users can be met and many different logical
views of the data allowed, enabling us to
search freely, to select the items we wish to
see and decide how these should be presented.
At the same time, only one physical
record is maintained. This control of redundancy
not only leads to greater consistency but
achieves economy since data are entered and
stored only once. Much conservation information
has an inherently regular structure and is
particularly suited to automated procedures.
The disadvantages of automated systems are
their size, complexity and cost, the additional
hardware requirement and the higher impact
of failure.
9.4.4 Setting up a documentation
system
The goal, which is the same for manual and
automated systems, is to meet organizational
requirements, to solve problems and make
decisions. It is therefore important to clarify
what is to be achieved and what problems are
to be solved.
The real world situation then has to be
mapped on to the computer and it is therefore
necessary to understand the concept behind
the software. A simple view of events is that,
data are input, processed, stored, processed
again and then output. Analysis of require-
ments should be principally concerned with
the output that is required and then with the
storage, processing and input required to
achieve that output. In more complex situations,
formal methodologies can be used to
define what has to be done, when and to what
standard to create the system. For larger projects,
a feasibility study is generally recommended
to define the problem to be addressed
and the scope of the project intended.
Analysis of the problem begins with a statement
of the physical reality of what is actually
done now. To whom is information sent and
from whom is it received? In what form is it
sent and received? What are the processes that
act on it or in which it is involved (e.g. condition
reporting, acquisition, loan). From this
statement of present physical reality a specification
of logical requirements can be developed
that is removed from physical
considerations of individuals, forms or files.
The next step is to produce a design that will
turn the desired logical system into a physical
reality.
Data design requires decisions to be made
about the sort of information that is to be
processed, the amount of space that should be
allocated for each type and how information
should be grouped into files, fields and
records. Examples of data types include free
text, structured text, numbers, dates and
images. Data design is often referred to as leading
the design because what we do is much
less likely to change than how we do it.
Detailed process design is concerned with
such issues as validation of data on entry,
batch versus individual updating of records
and the need for calculations on the data (e.g.
volume from dimensions, total costs from
hours worked and rates). Retrieval is of paramount
importance and the keys for data indexing
and selection, sequencing, formatting and
types of device required for output all need to
be carefully considered. At this stage, it is also
necessary to consider how much information
will be processed, how often this will occur
and how fast it should be done. Also, who will
process it, who will share it, what kinds of
access controls and security are required and
most importantly what it will look like to those
who will use it.
Armed with this information, a package or
system is chosen with which to implement the