Hello, I am proposing to conduct a long-overdue inventory of our collection in the near future, and am looking for some help or advice on assigning inventory numbers. Here's a summary of our situation. Some items in our collection have been accessioned and therefore have accession numbers. Other items that have not been accessioned have inventory numbers from a previous inventory. Then there are items that have been neither accessioned NOR inventoried. (we're a relatively young organization as a professional museum) So, I'm looking for a way to number these items that will be distinctly different from our accession numbers (we use the format 2003.x.x) until we decide whether to accession these items fully. Is there a standard system out there for this? Or, has anyone developed their own system that they'd be willing to share? I've considered using a prefix of sorts, such as "I" for inventory, or "NC" for non-collection, but wonder if this is the best way to go. I would want to enter these items into our database since it may be a while before decisions are made as to whether to accession them, and in the meantime I want to keep track of them. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks much! Cristin Grant Susan B. Anthony House ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).