There's nothing new under the sun - as my 1992 paper (see below) tried to
point out!

Worries about the security of museum and heritage records collected by the
"Alienation" Committees responsible for seizing heritage material from
public and private sources in the months after the French Revolution, led
the revolutionary assembly to lay down procedures by law and in great
detail, in 1791.

Every item was to be recorded in great detail on a separate card of a
standard size (the backs of playing cards in fact, which were
traditionally plain in France at that time, and readily available
throughout the country. Each card had to be numbered and coded
according to a detailed scheme to show exactly where it was collected or
recorded. The cards were to be transcribed exactly onto register sheets
(which had to be kept in a quite different location from the cards).

As soon as 100 cards were used and transcribed the local committee was
required to take a large sailmaker's needle and strong waxed thread, and
use these to sew the original cards together in bundles of 100 in
numerical order.  The original cards were then sent to Paris (and are
still there today).

See Boylan, P.J., 1992.  Revolutionary France and the foundation of modern
management and curatorial practice. Part I.  Museum Management &
Curatorship, vol. 11 (2): 141 - 152.

Patrick Boylan