Other Number

Other Numbers should also be recorded during phase 1 of the inventory.

These numbers can be an access point for investigating provenance of items in our collections, at phase 2 or Cataloguing Phase.

Other numbers include everything that is not an Accession number for example a negative number, a conservation number, a digitisation number and even a previous owner's number to organise their collections. These numbers may be found on accompanying paper documentation, object labels, on housing or even on the objects themselves.

We should record these numbers for catalogued and uncatalogued material and if there are multiple numbers, these should be recorded and separated by the use of a semi colon.

Examples

'Other numbers' to date have included digitisation numbers and conservation numbers.

Conservation Numbers

Conservation numbers include the year and sequential number if the items have been treated/ conserved i.e. 1989/90.

Former conservation colleagues who audited some of the visual material in the solander store in the early 2000s also prefixed sequential numbers with their initials 'JF1234' and 'AW1234'.

By recording these numbers during inventory we can later reconcile there condition ratings, for collections care colleagues to understand if material is stable or if conditions of material have worsened over time.

JF Numbers: Assigned to many visual materials, largely to portrait prints in the solander store . These were assigned during a survey by conservator Julie FitzGerald in the early 2000s.

AW Numbers: These record a survey conducted by Anna Wise, presumably in the early 2000s. To date these have applied to portrait prints in the drawer store.

Both surveys are available here: https://wellcomecloud.sharepoint.com/:f:/r/sites/wc2/cr/Legacy%20Files/Iconographic/Icon%20conservation%20programmes/2003-2006%20carried%20over%20from%20VR/Surveys?csf=1&web=1&e=5DYPS1

Iconographic Number as Other Number

Procedure adopted in April 2021.

There are some visual collections that are large in extent/ number of items that have been added to a single catalogue record under a single iconographic number. Because a catalogue record exists, we are recording them on Quickbase as partially catalogued material. Under Museum Accreditation however, this is not good practice and the catalogue records only give an estimate as to the size of the collection.

In October 2021, there were over 22 locations and containers on a single iconographic number that required inventory. The boxes all needed replacing and so each new container was assigned an inventory number, with the iconographic number recorded as 'other number' and the box was then listed. A collection level description with the number of items that were in the container was then added to Quickbase.

Contemporary Internal Wellcome Numbers

• PIP Numbers:

Pip numbers were compiled as part of a previous inventory and contains a great deal of information on currently uncatalogued collections.

The data of this inventory is accessible below: https://wellcomecloud.sharepoint.com/:x:/s/wc2/cr/ck/ETwDDO9v4VJOtLXpc5SvmHQB9nAX2elhbyTC3mTdMpFKyg?email=E.Lansell%40wellcome.ac.uk&e=5DDvDm

Furrther background on the project:

They are the identifiers in what it is now an Excel spreadsheet but was originally a database. It was created in a proprietary database system called Cardbox. Then, when the Wellcome Trust wanted to get rid of proprietary database systems, the data was migrated to Microsoft Access, from which William exported it several times to Microsoft Excel (mainly to back-up the data). The database was one of the outputs of the Prints Integration Project (PIP), which aimed to integrate the prints kept in an external store with those kept at Euston Road.

The records in the database are mostly collection-level records but sometimes item-level. There are about 8,000 records. They were intended as a halfway house between no information at all (the situation in 1989) and library catalogue records available to the public (i.e. in MARC format), most of which have yet to be created. Their purpose was to enable us to answer questions about this uncatalogued collection and to find the material requested until the records could be transferred to some kind of public platform. They served that purpose well for twenty years: for example an architect who was working on the restoration of the Tivoli waterfalls in Italy asked us if we had any prints or drawings of them, and the PIP database enabled us to find and produce some prints of those waterfalls as they were around 1795-1810 by an artist called Gmelin. It was always possible to find the items requested: the shelfmarks given in the spreadsheet are the Bentley House ones (from when the collection was in Bentley House, 200 Euston Road), but there is a conversion table to the Wellcome Building shelfmarks. The exact correspondence was disrupted when conservators carried out a reboxing programme ca. 2005-2007, but it's normally possible to find something, usually about two shelves after the one given in the table. The labels on the solanders also help to find a particular PIP number.

Members of the public did have some idea as to what was in this collection because we published a number of leaflets about it, placed the leaflets in other libraries and museums, gave them away at conferences, etc. e.g. on Italy, India, Scotland, Paris, Turkey, costume, London, Rome, decoration & design, and so on (see attachments).

For a number of years we were asked to fill out a form suggesting items for retrospective cataloguing or retrospective conversion of existing hard copy catalogues, and William repeatedly put forward the PIP database for migration into the catalogue (see attached). William was embarrassed by the fact that only I had access to the data (there were no shared drives at the time). However this proposal was never accepted. The proposal suggested that the artists' names should be migrated to free text fields in MARC, e.g. 508, but the librarian in charge believed that I was proposing to put the names in the controlled language fields in MARC, which would of course have messed them up. There was also the requirement to do some clean-up on the spreadsheet before migration, particularly on the diacritics that had been corrupted on the long and bumpy road between Cardbox and Excel.

When it became clear that the requested migration would never happen, William started to create individual records in the catalogue where they were needed for public activities, public information, exhibitions, photography, enquiries and so on. For example the prints of the waterfalls mentioned above: https://wellcomecollection.org/works?contributors.agent.label=%22Gmelin%2C+Wilhelm+Friedrich%2C+1760-1820.%22 and the prints assembled by Robert von Spalart https://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1185766~S5 So now it would not be desirable to export the data to the catalogue, as there would be duplication.

However the data, though basic, is fairly good, so you may be able to save some time by copying and pasting from the spreadsheet into the inventory document, or even by exporting the data into some format that is useful do you. However, the diacritics are still corrupt, at least in the version of the spreadsheet that I use.

The spreadsheet is supplemented by a number of hard-copy documents which are in ring folders. They contain additional information that would not fit well in the spreadsheet; for instance about the Hawes Craven albums (https://wellcomecollection.org/works/hn6gmcra: prepare to be amazed by these if you have not seen them already!).

The project started in 1990 and finished on 18 April 1996, though it was paused for a couple of years in the middle while the project staff were seconded to the job of preparing an exhibition of ca. 450 prints over seven floors of the Wellcome Building. Preparing this exhibition was, from the funder's point of view, the main purpose of the project. Most if not all of the records were created by Fiona James (now a freelance art lecturer) and Nat Foreman (now with Phaidon Press). Both had completed a course at Camberwell (now University of the Arts) on the history of prints and drawings. They took the items from the library's store on a trading estate in Enfield, where they were stored without folders in large crates, brought them to the office (then in Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, where the library was temporarily based while the Wellcome Building was being rebuilt), and subsequently to shelving at Bentley House (200 Euston Road, the home of the library at that time), and subsequently to the Wellcome Building.

In addition to the PIP database, the outputs of the project included hard-copy lists of portraits, numismatics, animals, and other classes. These lists were also used in replies to enquiries, as one of the commonest requests was for portraits of named individuals. I imagine some of these lists have now been superseded by your own lists of the portrait classes (literary, ecclesiastic, military etc,), while others have been superseded by the catalogue, but much has not yet been superseded by anything.

Of course all this documentation was first-draft stuff, as no previous information about most of the collection was available. Some fine reference books were acquired for the project, and some of these are still in the collection (such as the invaluable Abbey catalogues https://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/search~S4?/aabbey+j/aabbey+j/1%2C2%2C6%2CB/exact&FF=aabbey+j+r+john+roland+++++1896+++++1969&1%2C5%2C ), though others, such as the magnificent Blackmer catalogues of Greece and Turkey, were later thrown out as being "out of scope" (I mention these because there will be references to them in the database or on folders). The shelfmarks peter out at the end, because the compilers did not know where the items would be housed.

• ICV Numbers:

Stands for iconographic video disc number, now mostly superseded by 'i' numbers.

• V numbers:

These are digitisation numbers and can be matched up with their 'i' numbers using this spreadsheet: https://wellcomecloud.sharepoint.com/:x:/r/sites/wc2/cr/ci/Inventory/Visual%20%26%20material%20culture/VNumbers.xlsx?d=wc44237e74c26465d8a15a822a8e05ee6&csf=1&web=1&e=FIQzJK

• Rec Numbers:

These are simply i numbers without the 'i' at the end.

• F Numbers:

Also known as Image Reference numbers, usually included on visual material housing with 'V' numbers and 'Rec/BRN' numbers. Many 'F' numbers can be found in the '028' field on Sierra and can be found via a Sierra 'Word' search using the number only.

Historic Internal Wellcome Numbers

• Negative Numbers:

These often appear as "negative number" "neg no" or a combination of the two, however just as often they have no prefix at all.

Many of the objects in the collection were photographed in the past and these have been retained as negatives. These are important to record as they can give context to MIRO images which are online.

• HME Numbers:

HME numbers are not entirely understood. An example of their format is “HME c/1018”.

HME likely refers to “Historical Medical Exhibition” and those corresponding documents are referenced below.

William explains that HME meant Wigmore Street and that there was a big gulf between Wigmore Street (the exhibition gallery) and Willesden (the stores, and the place where most of the collections work went on).

There was possibly a HME sequence of glass negatives, started before the M series and stored in a different place. (Wigmore Street itself or Stratford Mews, or possibly at Snow Hill – the building that was destroyed in the Blitz, which would explain why we have no HME negatives today).

As the inventory progresses, we may be able to infer their significance backwards. The 39 items with HME numbers imported from Sierra to QuickBase are all oil on canvas paintings (though they seem to potentially have a different format). During inventory we have identified HME numbers on photographic positives of manuscripts (found on the Temp Trolley). They have also appeared at least once on the PHO accession registers.

Archive materials of possible relevance: c.1903-1909 Reference: WA/HMM/IC/1/33 Part of Wellcome Historical Medical Museum and Library https://wellcomecollection.org/works/xur3yggd/items

Likely related archive material:

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/k2fae5cz

CO/Hme Historical Medical Exhibition 1903-1913 FI/Hme Objects purchased for HME 1904-1910 VI/A HMM/HME 1913-1957

• WMMS Numbers

Appear to have the suffix WMMS or PRP or be arranged as ####/###.

WMMS is an acronym for the Wellcome Museum of Medical Science.

The WMMS was run completely separately from the WHMM and WHML. It did not use the same series of ledgers or cards. It also had a different purpose and ethos: its purpose was up-to-date teaching, not the preservation of the historical record, so historical accessions lists did not have the same priority. Its principles are set out in a book by its sometime director, Dr SH Daukes (https://wellcomecollection.org/works/tktsr5p4 ). The entrance to the WMMS was on the ground floor of 183, where the public cloakroom is today, and it stretched round eastwards.

There may have been an original numbering system used when the items were acquired. That is suggested by the typed label attached to the hydrocephalic skull. There certainly was a numbering system that was used (introduced?) when the WMMS was closed down in 1989 and absorbed into the Wellcome Tropical Institute (WTI): one of the members of staff (Sheila Aspinall) drew up large lists of items, and circulated copies to the WIHM staffers for preservation. Her lists may be somewhere in the Wellcome archives, either for the WMMS or for its successor the WTI. (There is an appendix at the end of Robert Rhodes James's biography of HS Wellcome that sets out the various institutions named after Wellcome, their dates and interrelations, up to 1993).

Sheila Aspinall was not on the staff when the collections of the WMMS were being built up. Her numbers may have been a second numbering system (if there was an original one). A further numbering system may have been introduced by the new archivist of the Wellcome Tropical Institute, Sue Bramley, when she took over ca. 1987.

William Schubach recognized the handwriting on the other label attached to the hydrocephalic skull as that of Dr A.J. (Tony) Duggan, the last director of the WMMS.

For further investigation: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/xczaqfm2

External Catalogue Numbers

Some numbers refer to external catalogues compiled by other cultural institutions. This will be useful for cataloguing and allow researchers to cross reference with other examples of these works in other institutions.

• Adams Numbers:

When used in the context of London prints, Adams refers to the invaluable work by Bernard Adams FLA, London illustrated, 1604-185 : a survey and index of topographical books and their plates, London 1983, which is in the Reading Room Gallery:

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/se275qrx

In the Wellcome catalogue, there are 653 references linking individual prints to Adams. The catalogue always spells out the title of the book, in order to avoid the confusion caused when abbreviated references are used (see any catalogue entry for incunabula!). However in the PIP database, only the name Adams is used, as the database was intended for internal use in the first instance.

It's possible that, in the context of European publications, the database compiler may have been referring to H.M. Adams, Catalogue of books printed on the continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries, another very useful publication, which is on the RMR shelves at

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/rrcfe94n

• BMC Numbers:

This stands for British Museum Catalogue and refers to the “Catalogue of engraved British portraits”. According to William “these volumes, bound in green leather, and now on the open shelves on the second floor, have proved invaluable to your predecessors for about a century.”

These are not unique numbers but can be used to cross reference with similar works in the British Museum. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/vtanxcu7

• HSM Numbers:

This very likely refers to History of Scottish Medicine, a book by J.D. Comrie and published for the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum by Baillière, Tindall & Cox in 1927. We have a one-volume edition in the library https://wellcomecollection.org/works/pyu2m33u but there was also a (presumably later and expanded) two volume edition. Both editions were beautifully produced. Many of the prints we have for the book have re-touchings that are interesting for book-illustration history.

• Drug Numbers:

In the hand of C.A. Earnshaw, these look like "Duy" or "Day" who would have written them in the workroom in the Wellcome Building.

These refer to one of the catalogues of portraits by Wilhelm Eduard Drugulin (1822-1879): probably his Verzeichniss von sechstausend Portraits von Aerzten, Naturforschern, Mathematikern, Reisenden und Entdeckern (Leipzig 1863), which is available online at https://wellcomecollection.org/works/jwgt2uqf . Renate Burgess cites it as one of her sources on p. xviii of her catalogue.

Drugulin also produced a more comprehensive catalogue: Allgemeiner Portrait-Katalog, i.e. general portrait catalogue, not limited to just doctors, scientists etc., unlike the 1863 work mentioned above. His catalogues record the prints that passed through his hands as a print dealer in Leipzig, though he did many other things as well besides selling prints.