In article <[log in to unmask]>,
[log in to unmask] writes
>In article <[log in to unmask]>, Adrienne DeArmas
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> >Unless absolutely necessary, why label the object at all when a properly
>> >attached non-acidic tag will serve the purpose?
>
>
>I manage a collection of 80,000 objects collected during the past 50
>years. There are scores of items without numbers on them and the tags are
>long gone -- removed for exhibit, during moves to new buildings, and who
>knows why! The point is that they are now "unknown items" without
>provenance or the ability to deaccession them because we don't know their
>history. I strongly recommend that museums label their artifacts. Your
>curatorial folks in the decades to come will appreciate it.
>
>Mary Ames Sheret,
>Collections Manager
>Southern Oregon Historical Society

In the UK, the Museums and Galleries Commission Registration Scheme
requires museums to mark all their object for exactly this reason. I
have been in museums where there is a pile of objects, and a
depressingly large pile of tags. Never the twain shall meet. MDA
publishes a free factsheet on labelling and marking techniques if anyone
is interested! - perhaps we should put it on our Web pages.
--
David Dawson

Museum Documentation Association
347 Cherry Hinton Road
Cambridge CB1 4DH
tel: (+44) 1223 518126 fax: (+44) 1223 213575

find out more about MDA at
http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/other/museums/mda/