At 12:15 PM 7/11/97 -0500, Emily Nedell wrote:

>Because of the problem with the date change in the year 2000, we are
having to redo our accession numbering. We've been accessioning by the last
two digits of the date and then the order in which it is received, i.e.,
97-1, 97-2, etc. 00-1 posses a problem for our system. What are other
automated museums doing?
>
>Thanks for your help.
>
>Emily Nedell
>Museum of Printing History

There is a rather large cottage industry developing that deals exclusively
with making computer applications conform to the demands of the year 2000.
I think if you search the web for the term "2000 compliance" you will hit
some of the businesses at work in this area.

For museum accession numbers, as other respondents to this problem have
already noted, it is much easier to solve this problem during initial
object keying.  In one system I developed, the accession number took the
following form: x.95.1.y where x and y were alphanumerics and 95 was the
year and 1 was a sequence.  When this number was entered it automatically
was placed in four fields.  The year field and the sequence field were
defined as numeric fields so that whenever two digits were entered 1900
would be added.  For the year 2000 one must change the coding so that 2000
is added: A simple procedure that takes apx 10 minutes of fussing and one
minute of doing.

Those museums that have placed their accession numbers in a single field
may be able to solve their problem by exporting the accession numbers into
a separate file, redefining their database to include sufficient fields for
the accession numbers to be imported as parts (keeping the original
accession number field).  A simple routine can then parse the accession
number into appropriate fields adding 1900 to each date.  Finally, the
separate fields can be recombined and used to replace the original single
accession number field.

A word of warning. In relational systems accession numbers are typically
used as the joining field between files and tables. Following the above
procedure will destroy all the joins based on the old accession number.
The database manager will have to replicate this procedure in each
file/table that uses the accession number as a join.

As in all crucial data transformation procedures it is important to make
sure that the data will be transformed correctly before it is relied upon.
For example, nineteenth-century accessions will have to be handled
separately.  Accessions using unusual numbering formats will have to be
separated out, etc.  If there is an error in an inputted accession number,
say if some object numbers taking the form 95.0001.a are written as in this
form, 95-0001-a, the parsing formula will undoubtedly fail for these objects.
===========================
Robert A. Baron
Museum Computer Consultant
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