We need to know what we have. If we don't know what we have we cannot do anything with it. We cannot preserve it, arrange it, make it accessible, or promote it. Even worse, this unknown material takes up space, which is at a premium. Any inventory, any list, is better than emptiness, void. If we don't know what we have, it's as if we don't have it at all.
Accessioning is the activity of bringing records into an archive.
An accession is a group of records donated or purchased to transferred to us
One batch of records brought in is a single accession.
That single accession may consist of items that could eventually go into one collection or multiple collections
An accession may also be an accretion, "an acquisition of materials added to an existing series or collection"
We use a spreadsheet to create basic intellectual control.
The Date Accessioned should be the day when the accession came in. If you can't remember, mention in notes when you think it came in.
Accessioning is also the time when you can do some rehousing, arrangement, and description.
Once accessioned:
- label each box of records with the accession number
- shelve the boxes in numerical sequence and/or record the locations in a location guide
- Shelve the boxes with other unprocessed collections waiting to be arranged and described.