At 09:40 AM 3/11/03 -0500, Cristin Grant wrote:
>Hello,
>I am proposing to conduct a long-overdue inventory of our collection in the
>near future, and am looking for some help or advice on assigning inventory
>numbers.

A system I developed at my former place of employment for temporary numbers
and non-accessioned items such as educational or exhibit props collections
was simply to use four letters. I started with AAAA, then AAAB, then AAAC;
when I got to AAAZ, then the next was AABA and so forth. Since we used the
standard ten digit numbering system for accessioned objects, and the same
with an "L" prefix for loans, there was no chance to get these letter codes
mixed up with the other designations. Then when and if an item such as a
temporary deposit "graduated" to being accessioned, we just flung, er
"flang?" the old four-letter code into the old number field and assigned a
new one. Since we had a number of different collections, we assigned a
different first letter for each curator (also avoided duplications) and
used "X"for exhibit props and "T" for teaching collection. Worked like a
charm. I hope that explanation is clear - feel free to contact me if you
need more info.
Anne

Anne T. Lane
Collections Manager
Charlotte Museum of History
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