Wow! This is a very useful thread (for me, at least) because I often consider moving our archival collections into PP, so "thank you" to all those contributing. I would agree with Anne completely, except to caution about giving archival "groupings" their own numbers. Again, I don't use PP for manuscripts, but archival standards break collections (or sub-collections) down hierarchically by series, then file, then item. These are generally NOT given any kind of number, in the way that accessions numbers work - but maybe PP requires it? One reason for this is because it can get even more complicated - some "containers" are intellectual (series, file, item) and some are physical (box, folder), some are both (item) and they all both exist on the same level. The difference with PP, as I understand it, is that its basic standard is Dublin Core which is far simpler and less hierarchical than DACS (the approved U.S. standard for archives). I believe that the newer versions of PP have more flexible metadata components, but the depth of the hierarchy is much more shallow. Does PP now allow more levels of collections? For example, the "Jo & Jerry Smith Collection has 3 series underneath it (Series 1 - Correspondence, Series 2 - Professional papers, Series 3 - photographs). Each series is then broken down into sub-series or file level (not to be confused with "folder"). So Correspondence might have beneath it File 1 - Family & Personal Letters, File 2 - Letters to the Editor, File 3 Letters to Government Officials. Each of these files might contain more than one folder (a physical container) or items (an intellectual/physical container). Does PP allow for this kind of hierarchical division?
Greg
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Anne Lane
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2014 8:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Mixed Object, Manuscript, and Archival Donations in Small Museums
I may be wrong, but I sense some misunderstanding of numbering in this thread, specifically the idea of accession number/object ID. Understand, too, that this is not the only way to do it - it has simply become a standard used by many museums.
Jo and Jerry Smith give you a collection that consists of many items from their old and prolific local family - clothing, furniture, Jo's clock collection, Great Grandma's cookstove and her cast iron pans and her set of sad irons, the family library, seven sets of love letters, and three generations' worth of materials from the Smith family's print shop and bindery.
They all come in on March 23, 2013. This is the seventh donation this year. The Accession number given to all of them is 2013.007. Each item within the accession is given its own further set of digits, from 2013.007.001 to 2013.007.097. Each non-archival object, such as a clock, is given its own number - 2013.007.023, for instance. In the archives, you may give a single number such as this to the whole shebang - Smith Archives, 2013.007.097. Depending on the level of description you use, some groupings in this collection, such as a box of love letters, might get their own further numbers - 2013.007.097.001. The individual items may never get their own numbers. Past Perfect allows you to catalogue a box full of archival material by developing a Container List, if you wish to go to item level description without bothering to number each item individually.
Let's say further that some of these items are being accepted into the Education Collection. Use the same accession number, give the items object ID numbers, and, as someone else mentioned, use ED or TC or what have you AFTER the object number. NEVER use the same number without the suffix for one thing and with it for another - in other words, do not use both 2013.007.021 and 2013.007.021ED. It's amazing how numbering like that can lead you down the primrose path to utter confusion.
Leading zeroes are important for sorting, especially if you export groups of items into Excel for any reason. They are less important when you actually mark the object as long as everyone understands that an object labeled 2013.7.43a-c will only show up in Past Perfect as 2013.007.043a-c.
Clear as mud?
Anne
ANNE T LANE
Administrative Support
Mountain Heritage Center
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee NC 28723
828-227-7129
On Feb 21, 2014, at 8:17 AM, Jackson, Gregory wrote:
As I mentioned, we do our manuscripts in a DACS based system, and use PP for museum collections (NOT special collections). So does PP allow identical numbers in the object and archives modules or can you add manuscript material to the archives module under the "same" collection? Does that question make sense?
Greg
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Anne Lane
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 3:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Mixed Object, Manuscript, and Archival Donations in Small Museums
Kelsey, if you put the archival material in the archives module in PastPerfect, there is no need to use a prefix. You can simply search within the archives and that's all that will show in your results.
Anne
ANNE T LANE
Administrative Support
Mountain Heritage Center
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee NC 28723
828-227-7129
On Feb 20, 2014, at 2:37 PM, Kelsey Ransick wrote:
Greg-
Basically, there has only been a museum professional in the museum for about 4 years, the museum is only about 10 years old, and the town committee in charge of managing materials from community members who wanted to donate their items to "the archive" in town is about 100 years old. We have some distinctive archival collections donated by specific members of the community that have been properly accessioned since a professional began working at the museum, but 90% of our archival material was amassed over 100 years by the community as a whole with no discernible provenance.
I started working here about 6 months ago, and when I asked where/what the archives were, I was directed to a large filing cabinet with hundreds of newspaper clippings, pamphlets, letters, and ephemera that had been organized by someone (a volunteer with the museum?) into folders and placed in loosely alphabetical order. We've decided that this collection of material represents a single arranged collection that was created by the entity that would become the current museum. There are series within this collection that organize the material by subject (specific people, business information, committee meeting minutes, and the like). This collection does not, as far as we know, relate directly to donated object collections, so there is no need (or, in fact, way) to tie the material in this collection to any artifacts.
However, judging by the donations I have seen in the past year, we will continue to receive donations with mixed object/archival materials that must be properly accessioned, arranged, and described while still representing one complete collection. Of course the issue then becomes one of numbering. Materials part of the large arranged collection are easily kept separate from the object collection, but then...how to number the mixed collections we receive from here on out so that the number integrates with both the archives and object portions of the collection. Since we want to make it easy for PP to show entries in numerical order, we have to be careful how many digits we use and in which places.
I think your suggestion to use the traditional Mss prefix makes sense. Since we aren't, of course, numbering individual items in the archives, the numbers shouldn't become too ungainly. It definitely makes it easier to identify which items are in the object collection and which are in the archives. It does require (depending on the search terms used) the researcher to look under 2014.01 and Mss.2014.01 in the search results, but that doesn't seem all that unusual.
Thank you for your response!
Kelsey
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