Joy Blouin
The Michigan Image Cataloging System, MICS, was developed by visual resouces curators at the University of Michigan in response to their desire to effectively serve the Department of the History of Art's teaching program. However, as the development of the program progressed, the curators realized that the software not only satisfied their unique needs, but had evolved into a very valuable collection management tool for similar collections at other institutions. Therefore, in 1988 the resulting software was copyrighted by the University of Michigan and available for purchase to other institutions through the university's Technology Management Office. Because MICS was developed by curators responsible for the organization of an image collection, its uniqueness lies in its sensitivity and responsiveness to the automation needs of the visual resources community. This sensitivity is reflected both in the software and the documentation written to accompany the program.
This paper discusses the history of the development of the MICS software at the University of Michigan, profiles the menu design which allows the user easy access into and through the program, and suggests proposed enhancements designed to help visual resources professinals meet the continually evolving needs of managing image collections.