At 11:35 AM 6/7/97 -0400, you wrote:
>This brings up a real problem as everyone gets onto the computerized
>database bandwagon. The ability to share and apply the information that is
>out there being tediously entered into these systems.
>
>Hopefully, before things get to advanced, we can develop metadata
>standards to assure that information can be compatible with the many
>systems out there.
 
This should not be too hard since there IS an industry standard.  As long as
your database is ODBC (Open/object Data Base Connectivity) compatible or the
database has an ODBC Driver (i.e., a program that can translate the database
into the ODBC format), the information should be transferable between
systems. The key issue will be to make the data in the fields obvious (i.e.,
no weird codes instead of text).  Since space is no longer a big issue, this
shouldn't be a problem. Obviously, it would be nice if everyone agreed on
what the fields will be called and what order they should be in...
Mary Ellin D'Agostino
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