Cataloguing in a museum setting [was Re: nonsense...]

I would certainly agree with that. Now without wisshing to start _another_ flamewar, I would suggest that a lot of people cataloguing exhibits fore musuems are _not_ computer experts.. Hence some of my earlier comments. Somebody else said that cataloguing properly was expensive. I would argue that the main 'cost' is time -- the actual materials needed are minimal. What you need is an knowledgable person to check over every machine, record the options/variants, etc. But hang on a second. Surely evey newly acquired machine should ne opened up and inspected anyway/ You want to make sure it doesn't suffer unnecessary deterioration. For example, mybe there's an internal backup battery. It sould at least be disconnected so it doesn't go into deep discharge. PErhaps it should be removed, packed in a leakproof container, labelled, and kept separately. Many of us have seen the damage that a leaking PCB-mounted battery can cause :-(. And to be honest, if you're going to do that, it doesn't take much more time or knowledge to note down what options are in the machine. -tony