Hugh Marles
This paper describes the development and implementation of a computer application to catalogue and provide access to a large slide collection on the history of art and design, using the 4th Dimension relational database system for Macintoshes. 4th Dimension allows for the creation of relational structures common to advanced database packages of this type. This paper considers how these structures may be utilised in the history of art subject area, and suggests that the strength of relational databases in this field lies with their flexibility. At the risk of appearing to be simplistic, the paper seeks to evade technical specificity and aims to discuss the principles of application building in this field of knowledge. Although the development of the database application under discussion cannot claim to have been an especially innovative project, the progress made does illustrate the potential of the inexpensive software packages which are now commercially available.