Advice on information management software

Posted by jaslar
Mar 8, 2016 at 06:09 PM

In my new job, we track censorship activity, mostly within the United States, but also internationally. The information comes to us in several ways:

- someone fills out a form reporting a challenge (typically to library materials), in which we capture WHAT is being challenged, its format (book, movie, music, program, etc.), WHY it is being challenged (text field and some subjects), WHO made the challenge and who is reporting it, WHERE the challenge took place, and HOW it was handled (the item or service was maintained, restricted, or eliminated).
- a phone call or email hollering for help. Most frequent these days is a school librarian whose principal or superintendent removed something from the shelves without any process at all, despite having policies that govern such things.
- we hear about something in the media, including the Internet.

We have a proprietary database (Access) that does all this, but we’re looking for something that adds some new functions, specifically,

- add ISSUES. For instance, recently Scholastic published a book called “A Birthday Cake for George Washington.” Many people protested its portrayal of “smiling slaves.” The book was then withdrawn by the publisher. It’s not censorship, because a private company has the right to pull its product. But it may be indicative of a more censorious time. Another issue might be the rise of English teachers having to let their students “opt out” of assigned reading that features sexual content, even if incidental, and even if the students are juniors and seniors in high school.
- add supporting material. Often, a challenge is attended by newspaper articles (either available as scanned items or webpages), letters to the editor, radio and television coverage. I’d like to be able to preserve and link this information to the original challenge or issue. So I want lots of documents.
- reports. How many movies in a year, or originating from public libraries? How many challenges internationally to the format of the graphic novel? What is the frequency by time of year?
- infographics. I’ve heard of functions that actually create some simple graphics: for instance, challenges over the past ten years by category.
- hot links to library databases to look up the item, or wikipedia to search for information about a city, etc.
- service history. Who in my office handled the case? What information did we provide, or additional consulting (visits, talks, letters of support, etc.). If we sent a policy, I want a link to the policy.
- ticklers to follow up on final disposition of an item or service.

Growing our existing tool would probably cost some $10,000. But all of you information gurus have, among you, some of the deepest knowledge I’ve encountered of these kinds of data management problems. Surely such a package already exists that could be used. We are a Windows-based office.

I would deeply appreciate any suggestions. Ideally it would also be multi-user. As many as six of us would need access to it. Thank you.