21638 - April 2011 Milepost.indd - Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

with physical and intellectual access
to the museum and its resources.” 7
with physical and intellectual access
With this standard in mind, the
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
has always striven to make its
collections accessible to anyone
interested. The process of making
collections accessible begins by
establishing intellectual and physical
control—simply put, determining
where each collection came from,
what each entails and where each is
located within the Museum—and then
developing paper or computerized
fi nding aids that can point users to
these collections.
The Museum’s efforts to make
archival collections accessible began
in 1986 when volunteers started
building databases for archival
collections using an Apple IIe
computer. In the interest of building
upon this work, the Friends of the
6 April 2011
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
began converting large batches of this
data to PC format in 1997. It was also
at this time that the Commission and
the Friends began to formulate plans
for a more comprehensive archives
database which they would call
“LADRS,” the Library And Archives
Data Retrieval System.
LADRS was a creation of several
individuals including former Museum
director David Dunn and FRM
volunteers Jim Alexander, George
Burbage, Robert Donecker and the
late Earle Compton. They recognized
that the Museum needed more than
simple fi nding aids. It required a
more complex management system
that would meet the needs of both
the using public—with a special
understanding of railroad history
and nomenclature—and of the
institutional standards of modern
museums. Fortunately, critical
skill sets came together as staff and
volunteers contributed to the general
management and planning, while
applying their collective knowledge
of computer technology and historical
documentation standards.
After reviewing several commercial
systems, the Museum decided to build
LADRS using a database application
called Inmagic DB Textworks,
which staff and volunteers initially
populated with pre-existing data from
older databases. The completion of
LADRS gave the Railroad Museum
of Pennsylvania an excellent tool for
establishing intellectual and physical
control over its archival collection,
and a successful model for presenting
this information to users, but the
PHMC/FRM partnership continued
to recognize the need for growth and
enhanced public access.
The North American Railway
Foundation provided several years
of critical funding that augmented
the Friends’ efforts to underwrite the
computer infrastructure necessary to
support LADRS. With their support,
the Museum acquired new hardware,
software and the temporary staff
assistance needed to scan images
and documents. By capturing highresolution
electronic images of paper
and fi lm items, the Museum has
reduced the need to handle delicate
original items while providing
thumbnail images which are easily
accessible to researchers through
LADRS.
While initial search capabilities
into this database were only available
internally, the Museum partnered with
Andornot Information Management
Solutions to make the data in LADRS
Photo above: Pictured here is a poster
advertising the Penn Central Auction of
1972. By purchasing 248 lots at this
auction, the Railroad Museum of
Pennsylvania’s founders acquired a
strong foundation upon which the library
and archives could grow. (RR2008.5.2,
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, PHMC)