In a perfect world we wouldn't have any objects come into the museum
unsolicited.  If objects are brought into our museum for examination for
possible acquisition, they should come in as an incoming loan and be
assigned an incoming loan number that is unique from our accession numbers
but still follows the year; eg. 2003.6...This would be recorded in TMS as a
loan record and the loan number would become the alternate number once it is
accessioned and assigned an accession number.
 
If objects are mailed or brought to us unsolicited we assign a temporary
custody number until their status as a loan or acquisition has been
determined.  That number is also unique by year 2003.8....  The temporary
custody number  becomes the alternate number if the object is accessioned.
 
Patricia Raynor
Loan Coordinator
 
Patricia  A. Raynor
Museum Specialist
National Postal Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560-0570
202-633-9376
202-786-2767 (fax)
 
Temporary mailing address:
National Postal Museum
Smithsonian Institution
2 Massachusetts Avenue, NE
Post Office Box 75039
Washington, DC 20002
 
>>> [log in to unmask] 02/06/03 01:38PM >>>
Not strictly a TMS question, but does have some relevance.  When an object
comes into the Museum as a potential acquisition do you assign a number to
it and create an object record?  What numbering system do you use?  We
just
started doing this when we got TMS and we use the reverse of the future
accession number e.g. 23.2002 would become 2002.23 once the Deed of Gift
was
signed.  This was a bit shortsighted as the acquisitions by year in TMS is
sorted by the accession date and not the object number.   The accession
date
for us is the date when the Deed of Gift is signed, so if the Deed for
2002.23 was signed before 2002.2 the list is all out of whack.  I would
appreciate it if anyone could suggest a better way of doing this.  In the
days before TMS we didn't assign a number at all and all we had were paper
records.
 
Thanks,
 
Anne Marr
Registrar
New Brunswick Museum