In article <[log in to unmask]>, "Robert A.
Baron" <[log in to unmask]> writes
>At 12:16 AM 11/23/96 +0000, Michael Cooper <[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
>>My feeling is that there are as many "standard" ways of numbering as
>>there are museums. Perhaps more: I know of at least one large and long-
>>established insitution that counted over 100 styles in use in their
>>registration system! Using numbers to indicate "whole-part"
>>relationships is especially tricky. Personally I prefer the option to
>>give one "whole" number to the whole object,
>
>I've run into situations in which a multi-part item (portfolio, teaset,
>etc.) is donated in parts -- a year at a time.  For these items the
>numbering system proposed above does not work well because the accession
>number scheme attempts to track two potentially dispirate concepts: date of
>acquisition and acquisition group.

That's a very good point, and one I avoided in my reply since I didn't
want to write too long an essay! We have similar problems with
archaeological items from the same site or even the same dig that have
been acquired at different times from different sources. Or large
collections given in bits and pieces over several years. In these cases
there's a lot to be said for running a "catalogue number" as a separate
system from the "accession number". The former pulls together all the
latter under sensible headings.

Mick


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Michael Cooper, Mineralist                 [log in to unmask]
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