I agree with Nancy and Vivian, but have a couple of questions.
Why do you want or need the accessions grouped together?
What kind of collection management software are you using?
Maybe it's just me, but changing accession numbers would be the absolute last resort because of the cascading effects that will likely have on so many other records and processes within your collection.
We have lots of examples of these kinds of trickle-in donations in our collection. Let's say Donor X sends in a box of 30 things to donate every year on January 1 and we decide to accept all of it. The objects in the 2020 group are given a similar accession number (2020.001.001-030, where the first set of number is the year of donation, second set is where the donation falls sequentially in the year, and the third set is the unique number for each of the 30 objects in the donation group.) But the 2020 accessions are entirely separate from the 2019, 2018, 2017, etc accessions because they were donated at different times.
Groups of objects that are donated at the same time are accessioned together under one donation group, but they aren't connected back to previous donations from the same donor through their accession numbers. That's what the donor fields in your collection management software are for. It's infinitely easier to run a search for all the objects donated by a particular person than it is to change the accession numbers on all your paperwork, all your objects, in your database, on any labels in the museum, etc.
I've used a wide range of databases in various collections over the years, from Excel spreadsheets to $500k custom built programs and they all have the ability to filter or query the data. We currently use Past Perfect (which gets called Past Adequate more often than not in our office) and there are lots of ways to isolate records related to a single person, regardless of accession number or donation date.
Again, I'd look for any other way to filter or group the records before changing accession numbers.
------------------------------
Zach Row-Heyveld
Exhibitions Manager
Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum
Decorah IA
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2020 10:45 AM
From: Michael Kassel
Subject: Open Ended Donations
Hello,
For several years, a donor has been giving us items from her collection as she downsizes. On multiple occasions, she has commented that there is no more to give only to contact us with more.
For our part, we have accessed each group of materials as it came in as a separate donation.
We are now reasonably sure that the donations have come to an end and are trying to organize her gifts into one cohesive whole. The debate whether or not to give the combined collection a new accession number or to keep the many other numbers that already exist.
I would appreciate your experiences and thoughts on the subject.
Michael KasselAssistant Director/Curator of Collections
Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum