Museum Computer Network logo in 2020.

Museum Computer Network logo in 2020.

Detail map of Manhattan, New York, New York, United States Overview map of Manhattan, New York, New York, United States

A: Manhattan, New York, New York, United States

The Museum Computer Network is Founded in New York

1967
Museum Computer Network logo in 1998.

Museum Computer Network logo in 1998.

In 1967 directors of fifteen New York-area museums formed the Museum Computer Network to create a prototype system for a shared museum data bank. The project recruited curators and registrars to develop a data dictionary that  accommodated the diverse methods used to describe museum collections. The resulting tagged record format allowed for the description of individual objects with separate records for artist biographical information and reference citations. Jack Heller's GRIPHOS (General Retrieval and Information Processor for Humanities Oriented Studies) system provided the information storage, search, and retrieval infrastructures for the records.

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