Ephemera

When the ephemera collection was first brought together, the idea was that any material with lettering would form the collection while items without lettering would be transferred to the visual collection.

Similar to the visual materials, items were arranged in subject-level boxes. These boxes would then be given a bibliographic record, providing varying levels of detail of what material was in the box, and an item record so the entire box could be retrieved.

Because of changes in cataloguing practice over the years, there are five major ways that items and boxes have been catalogued. They are also separated into 3 sizes; standard (in boxes), oversize (in folders/planchests), oversize plus (in folders/planchests). Each scenario and size requires a slightly different workflow.

Scenario 1 - Catalogued to box level only: bibliographic and item record for box only

Scenario 2 - All items catalogued to bibliographic level only: bibliographic and item record for box + bibliographic records for individual items

Scenario 3 - Catalogued to a mix of bibliographic and item level: bibliographic and item record for box + bibliographic and item records for some items and only bibliographic records for others

Scenario 4 - Catalogued to a mix of bibliographic and item level: bibliographic and item record for box + bibliographic and item records for some items + uncatalogued items

Scenario 5 - All items catalogued down to item level: bibliographic and item record for box + bibliographic and item record for all individual items

There will also be variations in procedure around boxes containing stamps and large numbers of identical labels.

How to identify scenarios from documentation:

Spreadsheet with a list of boxes, subjects and a rough estimate of how much catalogued/uncatalogued material is in each box.

Spreadsheet with a list of all fully uncatalogued boxes.

The majority of the items are fully uncatalogued therefore the team are creating minimum records for each item to make inventory simpler, to reduce future backlog and to ensure records reach Museum Accreditation standards.

After testing the team started working sequentially through material to aid LE&E colleagues with the changes.

Key fields

· Unique object number – shelfmark/ref no 001

· Object name – MAT TYPE

· Number of objects – 1 item = 1 item record (unless mentioned otherwise e.g. a collection of identical pharmacy labels)

· Basic description – 245/264/300

· Current location – Current location field/barcode

· Current owner – assumed Wellcome

· Recorder and recording date for this information – note in item record