Open Forum

Hi this is my first post and it is sort of long! I included an explanation, but my actual questions are at the end of the post! 

Okay, so the small historic house museum I work at is currently trying to organize/update the archives, a process which is taking a long time. I am an emerging museum professional and this is my first museum job so I am learning as I go. Well, I recently learned that object numbering is a thing - a thing that flat out does not exist in our archives or on our objects. 

So I participated in a webinar about object numbering, which provided a lot of answers but also a lot of questions. I tried reaching out to the presenter but have not heard back so I thought I would ask here! 

Obviously, object numbering is a useful and necessary cataloging tool and standard museum practice. But we don't even have a system to START from, beyond the organized objects in our archival boxes and their finding aids. I was talking with our director and a staff member who has a degree in archaeology. Originally, I wanted our numbers to look something like [year item was acquired].[collection number].[box number].[folder number].[item number in that folder]. So it would look like 2018.10.3.2.15. So we would know that this was acquired in 2018, it is in the 10th collection, in box 3, folder two, item 15. Our archaeologist made a great point that basing the numbering system on the boxing system is a risky idea because item 2018.10.3.2.15 might not always be housed in that box and file number and it opens it up to duplicates. 

The other struggle is that we don't know when certain items were acquired. (the staff has completely  turned over). 

Our current system in development looks like this: 
All items accessed before January 2017 will be "dated" as 2016. This will signify that we don't know the accession date. we will use current years for all items given after January 2017.
Each collection will be given a number. 
Each TYPE of item will be designated with a number 0-9. THIS IS A SIGNIFIER NUMBER and will NOT be followed by a period. For example, 0, will represent newspapers, 1 will represent paper items, 2 will represent original documents, 3 will represent physical objects. etc, etc. 
This number will be followed by the item number. 
EXAMPLE: 2018.14.315 would refer to an item acquired in 2018, in the 14th collection, where it is an object and the 15th item in that collection. 

OKAY THAT WAS A LOT OF EXPLANATION I'M SORRY. 

I have two sets of questions about object numbering.
1. How do you number duplicate items? Are they different numbers? Same numbers? Do you include a prefix to indicate a duplicate?
2. What about items that are in multiple formats. For instance - we have a set of VHS tapes that we converted to DVDs for ease of downloading to computers/viewing. So we have the original VHS that we don't know when were acquired  and the DVDs which we converted in 2017. Do we have a number for the VHS that is 2016.3.610V and then the DVD versions are 2016.3.610D OR would it be better to have the dvd versions be 2017.3.610.  

BONUS QUESTION 3 - What are good resources for this type of (incredibly daunting and terrifying) project? Should I be considering a completely different approach?

Thank you in advance! 

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Flannery Quinn
Historian
Clinton House Museum
Fayetteville AR
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Flannery,

I think that you would find a copy of The New Museum Registration Methods as well as Nomenclature 3.0 for Museum Cataloging to be helpful.

Using the box number, etc. is not good because boxes and locations change.  We don't use the system of identifying what something is either (document, object, etc.) because many objects in our collection come with instruction books or videos.  So we use [year of accession] [donation transaction] [item in that transaction] and [parts of the item, if necessary].  For example, the second item in the fifth donation we receive this year, which has five distinct parts, would be 2018.0005.002.01 [02, 03, 04, 05].  

Good idea to make all previous 2016.  When you find out more, you can add the actual date to the description.  Good luck on this big job!

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Michele Lyons
Curator
National Institutes of Health Stetten Museum
Bethesda MD
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My museum experience is likely different from most, being in a botanical garden, but we deal with multiple issues and location issues continually. Each plant acquisition receives a number followed by a slash, the four digit year, an asterisk, and qualifying letter, so it looks like this 1234/2018*A 

If there are five plants from the same source, same species, same everything acquired at the same time, they will bet letters A, B, C, D, E. However, if three come from one location, and two from another the groups will receive separate numbers and individual letters A, B, C for one group, and A, B for the other. This allows acquisitions to be tracked as well as individual plants throughout our 250 acres and greenhouses. 

Within the data record is a table of location codes so we can track by section. Once a permanent plant is mapped there is an additional set of X,Y coordinates entered into the data record placing that accession in an individual location, within a section, within the garden. When something moves, I get a note and remap the plant in its new location.

Might not be applicable to the type of collections you are managing, but it may generate some thought in that direction.


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A. Wayne Cahilly
Manager of Institutional Mapping
New York Botanical Garden
Bronx NY
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I used to work more heavily with collections and "Museum Registration Methods" by Rebecca Buck was helpful in describing how a numbering system works and why things are numbered in that manner. I don't know if it has been updated but I find myself going back to it. "Things Great and Small" by John Simmons is also a favorite of mine and deals with collection policies.  


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Sara Arnas
Grant Writer
David & Alfred Smart Museum of Art - University of Chicago
Chicago IL
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​Flannery, this is a long answer to your long question so bear with me! I believe the problem your experiencing boils down to this: archival numbering systems are completely different from object numbering systems. I have both artifacts and archive here and this is the difference:

For artifacts we assign an accession number to the gift (2017.001) and then each object is affixed with a modifier of this number (2017.001.00001). The number here tells me this is the first object donated by the first gift in 2017.

For archives we assign an accession number to the gift only (A2017.001) and the catalog number is different, it is made up of four parts: Collection, series, file unit, item. This is how it looks in practice. I have a collection of Photographs (PHO). Within that collection I have several Series which I number (01, 02, 03). Each series is a different type of photograph. Within each Series, I have several File Units or groups (001, 002, 003). Within each File Unit, there are individual pieces or photographs (0001, 0002, 0003). A complete catalog record and the number affixed to a photograph looks like this: PHO.01.001.0001. Yes, it's more complex than the accession number but this allows me to add photographs from different donors to the same collection.

Example: Joe Shmoe donates a photograph of his grandfather in military uniform. I create a Photograph collection (PHO). The first Series is for "military". I place the photo in a File Unit for "uniforms" and assign this as the first photo: PHO.01.001.0001

Then Jane Doe donates a photograph of her daughter in military uniform. I can add this to the first, its PHO.01.001.0002. All the military uniform photos are together making it easier to research and find later.

Now Sam donates a photograph of a building on a military base. It's not a uniform, but it is still in the Series for military, so I create a new File Unit for "bases." This photograph then becomes: PHO.01.002.0001. It's the first photograph of the File Unit for bases within the military Series of the photograph Collection. Phew!

There are numerous books and seminars out there to learn archival numbering systems. It will feel like you have two completely different systems working in your museum and that's because you will. But in the end, archival material is much easier to retrieve when it is cataloged properly and that means leaving the accession number out of the numbering system.

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Jenny Benjamin
Director
Museum of Vision
San Francisco CA
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Hello,

Object and archives cataloging and numbering can be very different.  Although every archives is different, archival collections tend not to be numbered or described at the item-level (the exceptions might be a very small archives with no backlog, a collection being digitized where every scan of every item will need its own metadata, or a collection where every item has an unusually high research value).  It is good for every archival collection to have its own unique number, which can look like a museum accession number ([year] - [first, second, etc accession of the year]).  For collections with unknown arrivals, you could do a number like [current year] - 0 [indicating found in collection] - [first, second, etc accession] and hope to find more info in the future to add to documentation.  It's helpful for boxes and folders to have the collection's unique number on them.  But further numbering is not usually necessary.  Description in a finding aid is important for locating items, though the description within a finding aid also tends to describe the collection in groups (series and sometime sub-series and files) rather than at the item-level.  

Sorry if this is getting too off-topic, but again though every archives is different, archives usually do not create a collection on a subject.  Origins/creating entities are kept separate to preserve context.  This means that though the Jill Smith papers include documents about the Vietnam War, and the Bob Oldby papers include such documents as well, the Vietnam-related material would not be separated and combined together to create the Vietnam War papers.  The Jill Smith papers and Bob Oldby papers would remain separate collections, described and arranged separately.  Each would have their own unique collection number.

Since you have finding aids, its sounds like you are in good shape!  But for more on archival arrangement and description, the Society of American Archivists has many useful publications: Museum Archives ed. Deborah Wythe, The Long Arranger by Christina Zamon (about managing a small archives), the Archival Fundamentals Series, and descriptive standards available online such as DACS.

Also, for object cataloging, Museum Registration Methods is great.  Hope this is helpful!







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Katherine Satriano
Associate Archivist
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology
Cambridge MA
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Hi Flannery,

First of all, I agree with the other posters about suggested resources - Museum Registration Methods and Registration Methods for the Small Museums are both sources with some great answers.

Secondly, I would advise against assigning additional meanings to numbers, as you explain here "Each TYPE of item will be designated with a number 0-9. THIS IS A SIGNIFIER NUMBER and will NOT be followed by a period. For example, 0, will represent newspapers, 1 will represent paper items, 2 will represent original documents, 3 will represent physical objects." 

When numbers have meaning as numbers (the 3rd collection that year, or 3rd folder) plus some other meaning, depending on their location in the schema (3=physical objects), things can get confusing very quickly. Additionally, as the collection grows, you may run out of numbers to represent the different types of things.  

As to your questions, it might help to think of museum numbering as an object based system, rather than a content based one. Yes, the content might be the same, but you have two or more objects in hand.

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Cheryl Miller
Librarian
Autry National Center
Los Angeles CA
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​I agree with Cheryl - you are so much better off using a controlled vocabulary in your "Object Name" of a catalog record rather than using a number within the Object ID to signify what type of object it is.

We use a basic trinomial numbering system. 2018.009.0015 would be the 15th item from the 9th donation of 2018. Well, technically the 8th donation. We reserve 001 of every year for Found in Collection. You may want to consider doing this too! I know your plan now is to use 2016 for all your current found in collection, but if you use the first accession number of the year for FIC it helps track when an item was "found" (as opposed to donated). This way, if someone discovers an item of unknown origin in the collection 50 years from now (after you're gone), they don't need to go back and catalog it under 2016 - besides, it may have not actually been there since then! This item might have been something accepted shortly after you left that, during staff turnaround, never got appropriately accessioned. This way, labeling it 2068.001.000? helps track the first time the unknown item was officially recognized in the collection. Then, when I start initiatives to try and find some original documentation for FICs, I know I can look at 001 for every year.

I also agree with many of the other responses that you should look at how you catalog objects and archives separately. If we have an accession (2018.009) that includes a trophy, a baseball hat, a collection of correspondence between the coach and players, other paper documents about the team, and a VHS and DVD with a recording of the same game, I would catalog it in this way:
2018.009.0001 - trophy
2018.009.0002 - hat
2018.009.0003 - the archival collection. Since this is one cohesive group of archival materials, it only needs one Object ID. Paired with this catalog record would be your standard Finding Aid with appropriate series etc., including a series for media where the VHS and DVD are listed. Everything is stored in labeled boxes and folders (reflecting the finding aid), but nothing in the archival collection needs to be individually numbered or labeled directly on the items.

Please feel free to call or email if there is anything else I can do to help! whitney.broadaway@ocfl.net, 407-836-8587

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Whitney Broadaway
Collections Manager
Orange County Regional History Center
Orlando FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-26-2018 05:53 PM
From: Cheryl Miller
Subject: Collection/Object numbering

Hi Flannery,

First of all, I agree with the other posters about suggested resources - Museum Registration Methods and Registration Methods for the Small Museums are both sources with some great answers.

Secondly, I would advise against assigning additional meanings to numbers, as you explain here "Each TYPE of item will be designated with a number 0-9. THIS IS A SIGNIFIER NUMBER and will NOT be followed by a period. For example, 0, will represent newspapers, 1 will represent paper items, 2 will represent original documents, 3 will represent physical objects."

When numbers have meaning as numbers (the 3rd collection that year, or 3rd folder) plus some other meaning, depending on their location in the schema (3=physical objects), things can get confusing very quickly. Additionally, as the collection grows, you may run out of numbers to represent the different types of things.

As to your questions, it might help to think of museum numbering as an object based system, rather than a content based one. Yes, the content might be the same, but you have two or more objects in hand.

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Cheryl Miller
Librarian
Autry National Center
Los Angeles CA
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Also - check out a book called - Managing Previously Unmanaged Collections by Angela Kipp - it has great case studies and you may find something that describes your exact situation!


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Erin Richardson PhD
Principal
Erin Richardson Consulting
Cooperstown NY
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Hi Flannery, 

I'm in a similar situation (emerging professional, no formal background in collections, stewarding a collection that's been poorly organized) trying to get our education collection into a functional system. Since it's an education collection (meaning it's informal, we use the objects constantly and their location is always changing) and not an archive or accessioned collection objects, it's a bit of a different beast, but I'll share what I've done so far and maybe it'll give you some ideas? 

My first step was to find a cloud-based RMS that would be more customizable and meant for collections. I landed on Collective Access. It's free, designed for museums, and highly customizable. I will caution, it's been pretty complicated to set up on a server and build, and we have a wonderful IT department that did most of that for us, but I imagine at a small museum you might not have that resource? The challenge was well worth it; so far Collective Access has been incredible, and we've been able to build it exactly how we need. 

For duplicate items, we will probably stick to using the A, B, C system for multiples of the same object. We don't have too many instances of objects in different formats, but the nice thing about C.A. is that you can create categories, and then create a record within that category. For example, since we're a natural history AND culture museum, and we also have teaching tools (plastic fossil casts, replicas for teaching etc.) I created separate categories for "specimens", "artifacts", and "teaching tools". 

As for resources, the MRM5 has been SO helpful and comprehensive. I might also recommend just reaching out to some other museums/archives in your area to ask advice and build a relationship with their registrars and collection managers. This would be helpful for your project, and would also be good for your museum as a whole since it would demonstrate that you're being proactive about caring for your collections. 

Good luck!

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Arryn Davis
Education Assistant
Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture
Seattle WA
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-27-2018 09:41 AM
From: Erin Richardson
Subject: Collection/Object numbering

Also - check out a book called - Managing Previously Unmanaged Collections by Angela Kipp - it has great case studies and you may find something that describes your exact situation!


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Erin Richardson PhD
Principal
Erin Richardson Consulting
Cooperstown NY
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