Oh do I agree with the idea of start with 1 and go on from
there!

At our museum some one had the screwball idea that the
photographs had to be numbered so: P (standing for
photograph - not that anything else is designated by a
letter); followed by the year it was processed by the museum
into the collection (who cares really - random photos -
random donations and not indicative of the year of the
photo); then a three digit number denoting the file - there
are approximately 50 files and little likelihood of
expansion -however :)
 Following that is a period ( . )and  following that is a
number ( three digits) which is supposed to designate the
individual photo. For example P90150.031 means the item in
hand is a photograph processed in 1990 from file # 150 and
it is photograph number 31 from this file. One would think
this "might" work wouldn't one?  However it does not.
Duplicates have arisen, nay triplicates and quadruplicate
numbers have arisen from this mess of photos. The original
intent was to be able to match up the negative with a
picture presented by a patron if they would like a copy of
it.  What is the answer here? A new photo collection
organizer obviously. :) For now however we are stuck with
this silly mess of numbers that are either irrelevant,
meaningless or confusing.

Go with #1 and on ad infinitum is my opinion. If you need to
know which file the patron took the photo from, stamp it on
the back of the picture.  Keep it simple. I wish someone had
in our case. I just recently published a local book
(RURAL ROOTS) of photos from our archives and what a chore
making sure those darn numbers matched!

Regards

Mary H.  a director of
Kewaunee County Historical Society