David,

Your "nonaccession" intrigues me because it sounds as if you do a form of cataloging as you accession.  Accessioning provides a method of accepting the donation into the care and responsibility of the museum, and can be accessioned as a whole, but does not need to be itemized on
the accession form, although it is preferable.  For example, if a museum, through archaeological field work, generated thousands of lithics, bones, etc., at the time of accessioning, not every flake needs to be itemized, although that would always be a goal at a future date.  Just
as the archaeological material could be accessioned as a unit, so could your documents, photographs, etc. be accessioned as one unit, with one number.  It would then be the responsibility of the division to catalog each individual object through accepted, documented procedures,
whether that would include numbering a like group of objects, or each individual object (which always should be a goal, but not always possible or feasible).

Also, when you request at a later date an accession number to "promote" an item, does that create confusion within the Registration division when a collection has a nonaccession number, but then parts receive an accession number?  How later is this date; a year or so?  And if so,
does the Registration division insert a new accession number into a previous year's running total of accessions, or do they create a number on the date of your request?  If it is a new number on the date of request, what method do you have to link the nonaccession number with the
parts that have an accession number from a different date?

In theory, each collection object should be treated equally, so in theory, shouldn't each accession be treated equally, too?


Kara J. Hurst



"David E. Haberstich" wrote:

> <snip>
>
> Incidentally, I'm still curious as to whether any other institutions use the
> term "nonaccession" to denote lower-level accessions, in which there are less
> stringent requirements for accountability, etc., than with higher-value,
> full-fledged "accessions."  In my unit, the Archives Center, we typically use
> the nonaccession procedure because most collections contain many thousands of
> papers, photographs, and documents.  This permits us to register collections
> without having to list each item individually.  It would be virtually
> impossible to list the thousands of items in the large photographer's archive
> I mentioned above, for example, just to get them entered in the registrar's
> files for a full "accession."  The nonaccession guidelines permit me to
> estimate the quantity or use volume to describe the collection.  I may in
> time request an accession number to "promote" selected photographs in this
> collection to the higher level.  With the other two small collections of
> photographs previously mentioned, I'll use the higher-level accession
> procedure because it's easy to list all the photographs on the accession
> memorandum--but also because they're documentary photographs which also
> function as works of art, and I think they warrant the additional implicit
> protection.
>
> The preceding paragraph represents more than you wanted to know, but I
> thought I would piggyback that issue onto my answer in another attempt to
> solicit comment on "bi-level" accessioning procedures.
>
> David Haberstich
>

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