I am listening with interest to the discussion of databases for faculty research interests (and you will also have to include instruction and service and "other" things such as equipment, etc.). I did that for many years. One person has commented that the faculty who are most interested in such efforts are the ones who do the least research and have the least amount of funding (again, beware of those who list everything). This is definitely the case. Unless you have a very small cadre of "active" faculty, an Access database, unless it is tied to some kind of automated mailing system, will, in reality, be less than useless and present serious upkeep problems (my personal opinion). Many years ago I created a hierarchical database on a mainframe computer and tied it to a database of funding opportunities. A small program matched people with funding announcements and generated an e-mail notice. The link between the two databases was a keyword thesaurus. After several years of managing those databases, we went with Infoed. Their system does the same thing mine did, only it depends on individual faculty to maintain their own profiles. Much easier and more efficient. And those who are really interested participate.

Now that I am in a department rather than a central office, I perform those services for "my" faculty. But I know each one individually and know their interests. When I see an announcement, I can immediately determine who should receive it. The key to this whole issue, I am convinced, is knowing individual faculty and their work on a fairly close and personal level.

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