Dear Karen
Here at the National Gallery in London, we number long-term loan in objects with a running number beginning with ‘L’ – ‘KL1’, ‘L2’, etc.; and exhibition loan-in
objects with a running number beginning with ‘x’ – ‘X1’, ‘X2’, etc. If an exhibition loan returns as a long loan, it is renumbered with an ‘X’ number, and vice versa; but if a long loan is used in a temporary exhibition whilst still on a long loan in, it retains
its ‘L’ number. If an object is returned to its owner and comes in again with the same status, it keeps its original number and record in TMS. The key rules are:
1.
Every object is only entered into TMS once
2.
Never renumber (if you can possibly help it; personally, I don’t like having to renumber objects when they change status, but in our long-standing
system, it can’t be helped).
Loan records are different, and here its best to consider the loan as an agreement or a document: a new agreement means a new loan, with a new number. Our numbering
system is ‘L.’, followed by the year, a hyphen, and a running number: e.g. ‘L.2019-123’. The years is the year in which the loan record was created, not the year the loan starts or ends; it’s included because otherwise we’d quickly have built up very long
numbers if we didn’t sub-divide them in some way. They are, essentially, meaningless. These are very obviously different in format from our object numbers. This is just a numbering system for loans in general – you have other fields in TMS which you can use
to state whether it’s incoming or outgoing, and long- or short-term. The key rule here (and I realise we’ve broken it with our object numbering, but still):
3.
Try not to encode meaning in numbers; they should effectively be arbitrary. If they’re not, you’ll either end up with inconsistencies or need to renumber
as your structures and procedures change – see (2) above.
A hat-tip to Tim Henbrey, who set all this up.
Hope this helps.
Best wishes
Rupert
Rupert Shepherd, PhD FSA
Collection Information Manager
Tel: +44 (0)20 7747 5921
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Karen Hines
Sent: 20 March 2019 20:59
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Loan numbers
Hello Fellow TMSers,
We have been on TMS for a while now. However, have just begun entering loans in the last couple of years. We currently have three types of loans:
Incoming - Short Term (generally related to exhibitions)
Incoming - Extended (lasting longer that one year)
Outgoing
We are trying figure a good way to to assign numbers to the loans themselves which will distinguish them from the specific object numbers within the loan. Currently our systems for both are very similar.
Also, is there anyone out there who might have what I might call a recurring loan? We have a few occasions where we have the same objects return to us seasonally on an ongoing basis. If so, how are these handled? Do you just assign and
new loan number with each new event of a loan? Do you retain the same object numbers and just attach that object to the new loan, so as not to make new object records for each new loan.
Our current numbering system for the objects actually assigns an EL (extended) or SL (short-term) loan number to the object specific to the year the loan entered the collection, however, if we receive a loan of the same objects the following
year, the specific object numbers no longer match up to the year of the new loan.
I look forward to any advice or suggestions!
Many thanks,
Karen
Karen Casey Hines Associate
Registrar Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Vassar College Box 703, 124
Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604 | T845.437.5249 | F845.437.5955 | http://fllac.vassar.edu/
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