Accession number

Accession numbers for catalogued material (where recorded) have been imported from the Sierra item record. Many accession numbers are recorded on objects/housing & need to be inputted into this field.

Accession numbers for catalogued material have been imported from the Sierra item record. Many accession numbers are recorded on objects/housing & need to be inputted into this field irrespective of their cataloguing status. We should record Registration and Accession numbers as found on artworks during phase 1 of the inventory.These numbers are a good starting point for investigating provenance of items in our collections, which may be completed during phase 2 inventory work or at a future Cataloguing Phase.We should record these numbers both for catalogued (if not already on Sierra) and uncatalogued material.

Data standardisation:

Record accession numbers without gaps and/or spaces between the prefix and the number. For example record: 'CC100' not 'CC 100'.

The prefix should be capitalised.

Accession numbers may include for example, those preceded by R, A, CC, P, PD, PHO, and PR and can be found on paper documentation, housing or on the back of objects. If an item has more than one accession or registration number, record both but separate the numbers with a semicolon.

Subject suffixes (e.g. "Hosp", "Med", "Insanity", "Africa") were initially recorded alongside their numbers in QB, but were removed during data standardisation. Previous iterations can be found here: Phase 2_Accession Numbers​

Stuck through accession numbers

Please record these numbers in the 'Accession Number column' with tagging/use of a square bracket around the number crossed out .i.e. <s>[PR2573]</s>

This convention is also used in the Transcribe Wellcome project, and will help with further research into objects that were renumbered or noted as 'spurious.'

A quick guide to understanding accession numbers