Selecting A Tool For Inventory & Assessment

[PeterK]

Perhaps because archives generally deal with unique materials, the internal thinking tends to be that their needs for collection management are unique — particular to the scope of the collection and to the history and character of the institution. Not that I entirely disagree with this. Whereas things like ISBNs and Library of Congress Call Numbers, for example, work splendidly for published materials and lending libraries, that kind of centralized identification system does not make sense for original and singular manuscripts, oral histories, etc, and therefore archives establish their own identification and arrangement system, naming conventions, and other practices that may be more codified in other situations.

An exception which proves the rule here is the cataloging of audio and video materials.

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Peterk
Dallas, Tx
pakur...@gmail.com
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