Accession as a verb

[D.M. Procida]

When did "accession" start to become used as a verb ("the new books were
accessioned into the library last week")?

My OED only includes it as a noun.

Daniele

[Peter T. Daniels]

Found already in 1800.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=accessioned&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

[Jerry Friedman]

Early 20th century, apparently.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=accessioned%2Caccessioning&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=accessioned%2Caccessioning&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 12:29:57 PM UTC-6, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 11:41:39 AM UTC-6, D.M. Procida wrote:
> > When did "accession" start to become used as a verb ("the new books were
> > accessioned into the library last week")?
> >
> > My OED only includes it as a noun.

> Early 20th century, apparently.

That's when it because popular, anyway.

> https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=accessioned%2Caccessioning&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
...

Oops. Second one was supposed to be

https://tinyurl.com/bdff8fh7

--
Jerry Friedman

[bil...@shaw.ca]

My "Encyclopedic Oxford" (1991) allows "accession" as a noun or verb.

bill

[D.M. Procida]

On 23 May 2023 at 18:40:26 BST, "D.M. Procida"

Thanks for all the pointers.

It would be quite useful, but - do you think it sounds... *vulgar*?

Or maybe that's just the association with "actioned".

Daniele

[Jerry Friedman]

On Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 2:11:57 PM UTC-6, D.M. Procida wrote:
> On 23 May 2023 at 18:40:26 BST, "D.M. Procida"
> <daniele-at-...@invalid.com> wrote:
>
> > When did "accession" start to become used as a verb ("the new books were
> > accessioned into the library last week")?
> >
> > My OED only includes it as a noun.
> Thanks for all the pointers.
>
> It would be quite useful, but - do you think it sounds... *vulgar*?

It sounds like jargon to me.

> Or maybe that's just the association with "actioned".

English seems limited about turning -ion nouns into verbs. Some
are familiar, such as "station" and "position", but unfamiliar ones
sound wrong to me and probably to a lot of people. "Actioned" is
now at the top of my list.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter T. Daniels]

High enough to be actionable?

If you don't need it any more, you could auction it.

[Ross Clark]

If it sounds wrong, what would you use in its place?
"Accede"? But this doesn't fit with any of the actual uses of "accede".
Etymologically, it's the book (or whatever) that "accedes" to the
library's or museum's collection. The formal procedure of adding it to
the collection (giving it an "accession number" etc.) needs a different
word. As pointed out here, "accession" has been verbed since the 19th
century; and for the reverse process there's "de-accession", from the
1970s.

[Hibou]

Le 23/05/2023 à 22:35, Ross Clark a écrit :
>
> If it sounds wrong, what would you use in its place?
> "Accede"? But this doesn't fit with any of the actual uses of "accede".
> Etymologically, it's the book (or whatever) that "accedes" to the
> library's or museum's collection. The formal procedure of adding it to
> the collection (giving it an "accession number" etc.) needs a different
> word. As pointed out here, "accession" has been verbed since the 19th
> century; and for the reverse process there's "de-accession", from the
> 1970s.

Added.

Simples!

'To accession' seems to go back to about 1883, as people have pointed
out with their Ngrams. When the expressed idea is an old one, an
interesting question in such cases is: "How did people say it before?"

[Snidely]

Remember when Hibou bragged outrageously? That was Tuesday:

When did formal museum management start? Lending libraries go back to
at least Regency days for Britain, but cataloging seems to be later,
Melvin Dewey's system was first published in 1876, and adapted to
French by the International Institute of Bibliography in 1895,
somewhere in Belgium. Whrn did a system spring up for The Isles?

/dps

--
"I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain

[Hibou]

Le 24/05/2023 à 07:40, Snidely a écrit :
> Remember when Hibou bragged outrageously?  That was Tuesday:
>>

>> Added.
>>
>> Simples!
>>
>> 'To accession' seems to go back to about 1883, as people have pointed
>> out with their Ngrams. When the expressed idea is an old one, an
>> interesting question in such cases is: "How did people say it before?"
>
> When did formal museum management start?  Lending libraries go back to
> at least Regency days for Britain, but cataloging seems to be later,
> Melvin Dewey's system was first published in 1876, and adapted to French
> by the International Institute of Bibliography in 1895, somewhere in
> Belgium.  Whrn did a system spring up for The Isles?

I think there must have been a procedure for adding books to libraries
ever since libraries began. A library without order, without a catalogue
(or at least an ordering on the shelves that is a sort of
self-catalogue), is just a heap of books.

The Great Library of Alexandria was not the first library, but it's
interesting that it apparently contained 40,000 to 400,000 scrolls. Its
librarians must have had some system for adding new ones, if they didn't
want to be plagued by lost scholars.

The answer may be on this page, but for the moment I don't see it:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria>

[Peter T. Daniels]

If you run your cursor along the line, it shows you the percentage for each
year. Whenever that's not a string of zeros, there was at least one occurrence.
There's also the "focus" tool, and if you ask for a decade or two, it shows a
graph with a much shorter y-axis so the curve gets bumpier.

[Peter T. Daniels]

The BM in particular used what is nowadays called a "dictionary
catalog(ue)," a book listing all the holdings, alphabetically ordered
by author, and every so often they published a supplement.

The books would most efficiently be ordered on the shelves by size,
to maximize use of space.

Card catalogs could not be devised until there was a means of
manufacturing perfectly uniform, card-stock-weight cards to alphabetize./

Alphabetization was not perfected until paper became cheap enough
to make draft lists of things; the earliest alphabetically ordered lists
of things used only the first letter, or in extaordinary cases the first
two letters. (Every time you redid it, you used up more paper.)

This is a particularly unsatisfying book on the topic, but it does
include a lot of facts.

https://www.amazon.com/Place-Everything-Curious-History-Alphabetical/dp/154167507X

[Jerry Friedman]

On Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 11:53:47 PM UTC-6, Hibou wrote:
> Le 23/05/2023 à 22:35, Ross Clark a écrit :
> >
> > If it sounds wrong, what would you use in its place?
> > "Accede"? But this doesn't fit with any of the actual uses of "accede".
> > Etymologically, it's the book (or whatever) that "accedes" to the
> > library's or museum's collection. The formal procedure of adding it to
> > the collection (giving it an "accession number" etc.) needs a different
> > word. As pointed out here, "accession" has been verbed since the 19th
> > century; and for the reverse process there's "de-accession", from the
> > 1970s.

> Added.
>
> Simples!

...

Maybe "added to the collection". "The book has been bought but not yet
added" doesn't seem to be enough, though I suppose people could have
gotten used to it. For single words "catalogued" or "registered" might have
worked.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Ross Clark]

"Access (v)" is another possibility, which has actually been used in the
sense we're talking about (OED access, v.1):

1910 Science 27 Dec. 198/2 The vertebrate material obtained and
accessed for the museum during the past twelve months is extensive.

1978 Times Lit. Suppl. 1 Dec. 1392/2 That awful day the Assistant
Keeper had flu, the central heating leaked, and the Lowestoft Hoard had
to be accessed.

Unfortunately it is likely to be confused with "access, v.2" which can
mean just "get hold of".

[Sam Plusnet]

The oldest surviving subscription library in the UK started in 1768 (in
Leeds). The earliest was in Lanarkshire, opened in 1741.
Such a library must have had a method for cataloging their 'stock' from
the very beginning (more than just an Ex Libris plate).

The processing of new 'stock' needn't differ much from the process used
in any commercial enterprise. Perhaps similar terms could be used?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-35831853

--
Sam Plusnet

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, May 24, 2023 at 4:52:02 PM UTC-4, Ross Clark wrote:
> On 25/05/2023 5:38 a.m., Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 11:53:47 PM UTC-6, Hibou wrote:
> >> Le 23/05/2023 à 22:35, Ross Clark a écrit :

> >>> If it sounds wrong, what would you use in its place?
> >>> "Accede"? But this doesn't fit with any of the actual uses of "accede".
> >>> Etymologically, it's the book (or whatever) that "accedes" to the
> >>> library's or museum's collection. The formal procedure of adding it to
> >>> the collection (giving it an "accession number" etc.) needs a different
> >>> word. As pointed out here, "accession" has been verbed since the 19th
> >>> century; and for the reverse process there's "de-accession", from the
> >>> 1970s.
> >> Added.
> >> Simples!
>

> > Maybe "added to the collection". "The book has been bought but not yet
> > added" doesn't seem to be enough, though I suppose people could have
> > gotten used to it. For single words "catalogued" or "registered" might have
> > worked.
>
> "Access (v)" is another possibility, which has actually been used in the
> sense we're talking about (OED access, v.1):
>
> 1910 Science 27 Dec. 198/2 The vertebrate material obtained and
> accessed for the museum during the past twelve months is extensive.

Does that entail all the many steps involved in accessioning an item
to a collection?

> 1978 Times Lit. Suppl. 1 Dec. 1392/2 That awful day the Assistant
> Keeper had flu, the central heating leaked, and the Lowestoft Hoard had
> to be accessed.

Without context, that makes it look like the A.K. is the only person who
has a key to the cupboard it's kept in.

> Unfortunately it is likely to be confused with "access, v.2" which can
> mean just "get hold of".

Or simply 'come into the presence of'.

[lar3ryca]

That reminds me... lately, I notice a lot of folks pronouncing 'access'
the same as 'assess', including the stress on the second syllable.

It makes me wonder if it's being taught that way in schools.

--
No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

[Hibou]

It pays to be a bit careful with Google's Ngram Viewer. Low frequencies,
down in the noise, are often misleading. Here is an example found by
Google Books. The tome is from 1807, the word 'accessioned' in a library
stamp from 2013:

<https://www.cjoint.com/c/MEzfLKYW338> (link valid 21 days)

[Peter T. Daniels]

Well, that's annoying!

[Steve Hayes]

As far as I know it's used as a verb only in librarian's jargon.

I've never heard it outside that context.






--
Steve Hayes http://khanya.wordpress.com

[Sam Plusnet]

On 28-May-23 11:41, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Tue, 23 May 2023 17:40:26 +0000, D.M. Procida wrote:
>
>> When did "accession" start to become used as a verb ("the new books were
>> accessioned into the library last week")?
>>
>> My OED only includes it as a noun.
>
> As far as I know it's used as a verb only in librarian's jargon.
>
> I've never heard it outside that context.

There is a steady leakage from occupation-specific jargon into general
use. Some people like to be seen as privy to arcane secrets.

--
Sam Plusnet

[Jerry Friedman]

That's probably the bottom line.

--
Jerry Friedman