Concluding remarks:

Reasons behind the shortfall of the project:
The cataloguing faced several problems which has consequently created limitations in the nature, details and presentation of data. As this is the first digital catalogue of this type in Bangladesh, many technical problems could not be resolved because of the time limit. For example, the words other than English (Bangla, Sanskrit, etc.) could not be marked for all cases; because the database language does not support to demarcate such differences of Font and style. Many entries which were incorporated within the open ended format of cataloguing could not be completed because of complete absence of data and even data source. Reasons for this were multifaceted.

For example, cross-referencing of the objects with various texts and museums could have been more complete. In many cases, data was unavailable owing to the absence of any proper and systematic catalogue in different other museums in Bangladesh and because of lack accessibility into the documentation, if there is any systematic and available one, of the museums. As for texts, we only considered the same object, not the similar one. It could have been done; but referencing of figures, texts and plates varies in many ways in various relevant texts.

Lack of relevant contextual information and local stories have created another problem in complete cataloguing. There is a catalogue in the form of a registrar book in the Museum in written format and it lacks any kind of systematic methodology of documentation. Moreover, many objects have not even been documented in that catalogue written in a simple binding book.

Because of corrosion and decay, many coins have become illegible. Various data on the obverse and reverse could not be gathered.

As an open ended approach, we included several fields of entry for all the objects. For instance, there are fields like Stylistic and artistic attributes for several object classes. However, for many objects these two fields proved to be irrelevant. For example, these fields were found invalid for colonial and modern coins.

Owing to the present display system in the museum, some of the entries could not be completed. For instance, thickness of the inscriptions could not be measured as all the inscriptions have been fixed to their places with cement.

We did not delete or exclude the entries and fields which could not be filled. These fields were kept blank in the hope that it would be possible to retrieve a few data in future. We have also kept in our mind that cataloguing is an ongoing process.

Propositions:

After the complicated and enormous task of cataloguing, we have managed to form some propositions for the future of Dinajpur museum and for the digital cataloguing processes themselves. These are:

- There is no need to incorporate Dinajpur museum into Governmental domain. In spite of the fact that the collection, documentation, preservation, conservation and management problem of Dinajpur museum is immense, these problems, we felt, could be solved without any control from the state. The community based initiative must go on with a certain extent of accountability.
- There should be some financial and training assistance for the persons who are involved in the management and executive committee. The security of the museum must be tightened.
- The museum should get certain degree of authority for the collection of artifacts.
- The digital cataloguing processes must be a part and parcel of all the museums of Bangladesh. With further assistance, several minor problems regarding the data base can be resolved.
- Most importantly, this particular database must be launched to the web. There is no profit with this catalogue without putting it to the public access. Moreover, the public access may inspire the dominant intellectuals to go beyond their prison of knowledge and to accept this method and form as more scientific, durable and reliable

Acknowledgements:

We acknowledge the assistance of M. M. Hoque, M. H. Bhuiyan, Masud Imran, Foysal and Urmila Hasnat in various aspects of the catalogue.