I have successfully used Excel at two museums to create the master accession register. It has worked well, but with a couple of caveats.
First, every time we make even the tiniest change or addition, we always, always print a hard copy. I think it's really important to have the paper copy even though we have very good electronic backup procedures.
Also, you may wish to password protect the Excel file and limit which people can edit it. One thing about the old fashioned handwritten ledgers is that they are very difficult to tamper with. Hate to say it, but us "insiders" are often the ones responsible when something from the collection turns up missing, and museum professionals have been known to falsify collections records on rare occasion when they've taken things from the collection illegally. Making the collections records (including the register) hard to falsify is a protection for both us as professionals and for the organizations we work for. Even if you don't password protect the file, make sure only certain personnel have access to it.
With those things in mind, it's a far more efficient way to maintain records, in my opinion.
As for your question about accession numbering policies, are you referring to the structure of the number itself (i.e. we use a three part accession number in the format year.lot.item), or do you mean how are accession numbers physically marked on different types of objects, or something else entirely? Either way, I would suggest checking out a copy of Museum Registration Methods 5th Edition, published by and available through AAM. It's "the" go-to source for this type of information and well worth the investment.
Finally, you might also want to post your questions to the RC-AAM listserv for more opinions and information from the field. See http://www.rcaam.org/Listserv.
Best,
Cristin
Cristin J. Waterbury
Curator
National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium
A Property of the Dubuque County Historical Society
350 East 3rd Street
Dubuque, Iowa 52001
Ph: 563-557-9545, ext 204
Fax: 563-583-1241
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.rivermuseum.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Juetian Luo
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 12:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Accession Register/ Master Ledger
Hello,
Are there any museums out there which have successfully employed the use of an electronic master ledger/ accession register? By that, I mean using computer (MS Excel) as a master ledger or some software to generate unique accession number when assigning numbers to your collection?
What are the pros/ cons of using electronic ledger over handwritten ledgers?
http://www.studiolo.org/MusComp/LEDGER.htm
Also, anyone with Accessioning Numbering Policy to share?
We are in the midst of reviewing our system to make sure it's watertight to prevent recurrence of errors such as 2 items having the same accession no.
Thanks in advance!
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