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  • 1.  accession/collection file storage

    Posted 08-19-2024 03:38 PM

    Good afternoon,

    What do you currently use to store your accession/collection documentation files?

    I am currently looking for a better way to wrangle my many cabinets of accession records. They are now stored in 4 drawer lateral files,  five 36" and two 42" wide, so a total of 22 feet. And that is just accession files, as I have another two 36" and two 42" file cabinets that contain loan records and other ancillary files (another 13 feet), plus two other large bookcases (8 feet) and every top surface has something on it. 

    Unfortunately, weight limits preclude us from putting these cabinets on a compacting system.

    I am one drawer away (maybe 4 years?) from filling the current cabinet of accession records and simply do not have room for another cabinet. Of course any back cataloging adds to the previous files as well.

    Drowning in a sea of paper...



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    Amy Thompson
    Registrar
    Maine State Museum
    Augusta ME
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  • 2.  RE: accession/collection file storage

    Posted 08-20-2024 09:11 AM
    Hi, Amy - you don't say what CMS you're using, but are the supporting documents also digitized?  If there is a way you can include the digitized docs in your correlating object files, then place the paper documents in offsite storage for retrieval only when absolutely necessary, might that help?

    I feel your pain; we museum folks are guilty of keeping everything!  Vivian