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/