Dear Anne:
We have the following system:
Before an object comes into the building, it is assigned a number by the
curatorial department and entered into TMS.  This number is composed of  an
alphabetical abbreviation of the department (AS for Asian), the year, the
next number in the departments sequence, and a "object
number".  Ex:  AS2002.1.2
When the object comes into the building, the Registrar's office assigns a
Temporary Number.   Then if and when accessioned, an Accession number.
Loans remain on the Temporary number until they are returned and then get a
Returned number.  The Temporary number and the Return number are in the
same format.
Hope this helps
Lynne Addison
 
At 02:38 PM 2-6-2003 -0400, you wrote:
>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
 
L.Lynne Addison
Associate Registrar
Yale University Art Gallery
Tel:  203.432.0604
Fax: 203.432.7159