Harmon Museum

Old Orchard Beach Historical Society/Harmon Museum has been awarded a grant in the amount of $870 from the Historical Records Collections Grant Program for Cataloging Software, through the Maine State Archives.  This program encourages museums and historical societies to purchase or upgrade existing software for cataloging items in their collection. 

Harmon Museum now has several thousands of items accessed into our collection and have outgrown the size and limitations of our present Excel database.  This funding has allowed us to purchase the museum-specific software program “PastPerfect.”  PastPerfect provides its program to museums, historical societies and libraries worldwide and is the world's most popular and affordable museum software.  They serve over 40 participating institutions in Maine, including the Maine Historical Society, Saco Museum, Seashore Trolley Museum, and Victoria Mansion.  

Features of PastPerfect include the capacity to hold millions of catalog records, ergonomically designed navigation, photo attachments, customized fields of entry, user-specific catalog lists, and Report Maker report builder.  We will also be able to manage our membership and contacts database, generate reports, and create mail merge letters within this same program.  Thinking ahead to the future, there is a possibility to add upgrades and produce Virtual Exhibits of our collection for research or display online.

Janet Hamilton and Mike Vallante are currently working on conversion of our current Excel database into the new program.  This process has required some re-formatting of our database and is being completed in stages.  We would like to thank Mike very much for volunteering his time and expertise to this project around an already busy schedule. 

Past Perfect will be an exciting advancement for the Museum and we look forward to having it up and running soon.