Note:
The following article is being posted to MUSEUM-L in response to over
twenty requests for it.

It was written in 1991 in answer to a question posed in _Registrar_, a
publication of the Registrar's Committee of the American Association of
Museums. If it were written today, I would probably change very little.  I
have added notes to those several items that warrant revision or comment.

This article focuses on the function of the accession ledger as a legal
document and the means by which its production may and may not be
transferred to automated systems.

                [Computerized Accession Ledgers?]

>From _Registrar_ (Fall 1991, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 41 ff)
A Publication of the Registrars Committee of the American
Association of Museums.

                          "Open Forum"

Question:

Should a museum use an accession ledger that is bound and hand-
written or a computerized or type-written ledger?  What is
better, given the purpose of the document?  Consider the security
of the information, the legibility, permanence and the ability of
persons to alter the information.

Response:

The hand-written accession ledger customarily used to record a
museum's acquisition history should never be displaced by card
files or computerized database entries.  The traditional ledger
format is mandatory because it must serve as the authoritative,
permanent, inviolate and legal record of a museum's accession
activity, and consequently must provide a definitive listing of
objects the museum has accepted into its permanent collection.
The accession ledger is certainly a record of museum accession
activity, but more, it carries the force of a legal document.  As
such, the ledger both assigns and defines accession numbers.  It
establishes the termini of each accession number series for the
year, the numbers assigned to each accession grouping and to
object parts, and notes those numbers within each series that
have not been and will not be assigned.

Each entry contained in the ledger must minimally identify
objects by number, must note the location of that number on the
object, should identify any previously assigned numbers, and must
describe and classify the object briefly with the best
intelligence known at the moment. The entry should include the
object's measurements and should list and number any accessories
or parts that are to be included within the accession group.  The
entry should record the immediate source or donor, record any
stipulated credit line, legal restrictions, and should identify
the person recording the entry.

Because accession ledgers establish the legal sequence of museum
acquisitions, they must be regarded as documents that certify the
accessioned objects recorded, much as a banknote or stock
certificate stands for an incurred debt.  Accession registers
should consist of sequentially numbered volumes with the period
of activity plainly written on the spine or cover and repeated on
a title-page.  The numbered series within each volume should be
contiguous.  Any hiatus in the number sequence should be
documented.  Each ledger page should be pre-numbered.  The
sheets, when containing hand-written entries, should be bound in
sewn-gatherings (not perfect-bound or loose-leaf).  In addition,
it would be useful to enter the total number of pages contained
in any single volume on the first page:  page one of one hundred
pages.   The paper and ink should be of archival quality.  In
addition, the records written in the ledger should account for
every line on a page.  Unused pages and unused lines should be
canceled.  The last entry in the register should be identified.
Registrars should not reserve room in accession ledgers for works
promised but not physically received.  Obviously, the accession
books should be kept in a secure fireproof location.  These
volumes should not be used for general reference.  If needed,
photo-copies should be consulted instead.

Registrars should avoid using ledgers for object management, nor
should these books be updated with the latest information
regarding provenance or attribution.  For this, a modern
accession filing system (card or computer) is needed.  The
customary sets of card-files, vertical files and computer
databases should contain data on all object identification
history consequent to the date of accession.  These files should
be maintained so that any researcher can locate the original
entry in the registration ledgers, even though the information
contained in them might be considered wrong or outdated, or if
the accession number were changed later on.

Obviously card-catalogues cannot be used as the primary record of
accession because they cannot document the end of a series of
assigned numbers, because their order is subject to corruption
and because their elements are subject to damage or loss.  For
similar reasons, loose-leaf typed entries are not acceptable.
Electronic computer files are the least acceptable means of
establishing a legal record of accessions since there is no way
to create an archival original[n.1].  Computer records should be
avoided because they are dependent upon a changing technology for
interpretation.

The custom of keeping hand-written accession ledgers dates from a
period when all museum record-keeping began with the ledger
entry.  Today, as computerization becomes the ubiquitous means of
collecting object data, the record of accession activity is more
easily produced as a by-product of the acquisition procedure.
Consequently, it seems that some consideration must be given to
the ability of the computer to compile and generate the structure
and data required of the traditional accession ledger.  An
adequate legal surrogate for the standard hand-written ledger can
be made by object management programs if the procedural
safeguards tacit in the former device are adapted for use in the
latter.

The computer-driven ledger should be printed on archival
materials, for example on acid-free paper with heat-sealed
plasticized laser-printer toner[n.2].  At the end of each logical or
customary accession period, a report listing the complete
accession history for that period should be created that presents
a contiguous series of accession numbers, including
representations of those not assigned (so marked).  The first and
end of each accession series should be signed-off by hand, and
the record for each object and part should be hand initialed for
correctness by authorized personnel.  The information offered in
the accession report should be the same as found in the hand-
journal. Procedures should be developed to insure the continuity
of the page-numbering system from report to report.  At regular
intervals the output should be gathered and library-bound with
the left margins sewn.   The footer on each page may serve as a
location for the complete signature of the chair of the
Acquisitions Committee or the Registrar.

Each volume of the hand- or computer-ledger should have a title-
page that identifies the institution, the activity and period
documented, the names of the museum's director, the relevant
curators and/or the acquisition committee members.  The name of
the Registrar should appear along with the names and initials of
anyone who has checked the contents of the document.  In sum, the
ledger should be unambiguous and self-documenting.  Its function
and nature should be perfectly obvious to someone in the future
who is not a museum professional and who may chance to come
across it divorced from its original context or location.

note 1:  Systems for archiving, date-stamping and verifying electronic
documents as original now exist.  At this writing (July 1995), I do not
think the methods employed and services provided have achieved sufficient
acceptance to warrant being used as legal surrogates for paper records.

note 2:  I'm not certain whether standard laser printing toner is
considered archival.

(c) Copyright 1991-1995 by Robert A. Baron
Museum Computer Consultant
P.O. Box 93
Larchmont, New York  10538-0093
(914) 834-0233