Washington University Libraries
Department of Special Collections
Manuscript Division

ACCESSION GUIDELINES

When materials come into the archive or leave the archive, the movement of the materials needs to be tracked. This is registration. The most important registration function we do is accession materials into the archive. Accessioning is the name of the process that establishes that we have taken possession of materials and begun custodianship. In business terms, the analogue would be creating nessary records to generate a receipt for the donor/seller and to beginning tracking the item of inventory. The steps for accessioning items are:

  1. The first step in accessioning materials is to establish ownership of the materials. As per our guide for donors and for any collection that is purchased, collections should not enter the archive until ownership has been established. It makes little sense to use university resources to process collections we do not own. In the case of purchases this is a simple process - payment must have been made on the materials. A bill of sale should be on file. In the case of donations we should have a deed of gift in hand and all appropriate gift-in-kind steps complete before the accession process moves to the second step.
  2. Ensure that a basic box level listing of the items in the boxes in an accession is available. If there isn't one, produce it filling in the form linked below.
    You can use the form, here, to produce an accession register. The following information must be in an accession register:
    • Accession Number (check the accession file & choose the next number in sequence. This is later recorded in 541e)
    • Main Entry
    • Title
    • Physical Description
      • format
      • inclusive dates
    • Source of gift/purchase
      • Donor/seller name
      • Address of donor/seller
      • Method of acquisition (purchase, gift)(When purchase is used, follow with fund #)
      • Date of acquisition
      • Accession number
      • Owner (used if items donated/sold through a representative)
      • Purchase price (in the item record)
      • Extent (linear feet)
      • Type of unit (boxes)
      • Materials specified
    • Provenance of materials
    • Location of materials (usually "accession queue"
    • Container listing by box
  3. The next step is to perform preservation triage before placing items in the accession queue. Only do preservation work that is absolutely necessary at the time the collection arrives (moisture, infestations, *severe* problems with housing). Without disturbing the original order of the materials, identify items in the collection that immediately need the following:
    • Rehousing
      Frequently collections come to us housed in containers (boxes and folders)that are damaged or harmful to the materials, or both. If the containers are damaged, the wrong size, or acidic we have to take action immediately.
      • Move materials in damaged, acidic, or wrong sized folders to a buffered folder, retaining original information on the folder. In cases where folders have a great deal of information, photocopy the information onto buffered paper and place it with the materials in the new folder.
      • Move materials in damaged, acidic, or wrong sized boxes to buffered cartons before placing in the accession queue.
    • Materials preservation
      Some materials may require special actions with regard to preservation. These may need to have the attention of preservation immediately. Prepare a separation note indicating container information in the collection and send one with the item.
  4. The next step in accessioning is to make the initial MARC record for the materials. Accession records should be done locally using our III system. Accession records should not be entered into OCLC.

    When entering information in a new MARC accession record enter the following information in the following fields:
    1. For a general overview of MARC and MSS here at WU, look at the MARC tagging guidelines
    2. We will create both an item level record and a bib record for the accession. Accession records should be done locally using our III system. Accession records should not be entered into OCLC.
      Item Record
      1. The status of the collection in the III item record should be set to "p" (in process)
      2. The item type is "3".
      3. The location is is "zmss".
      4. The material type is "t" (manuscripts)
      5. The location code is "zmss".
    3. Create the bibliographic record for the accession using, as necessary, the following fields:
      1. 040 a,e,c
      2. 049 a
      3. 097
        This local call number field should be used with a location code.
      4. 100 or 110
      5. 245 k,f,h
      6. 300 a,f (do f in linear feet for accessions)
      7. 520 a
      8. 541 a,b,c,d,e,f,h
      9. 544 n
      10. 561 a
      11. 580 a
        When the accession is an accrual to an existing collection, this field with 773, below, should point to the collection record. For the purposes of accessioning, an accrual can be categorized as fonds that have the same creator (though not necessarily the same provenance) as a previous accession. Should we have more than one accession with the same creator, a collection level record will need to be created to link them.
      12. 583 a,c,i,j,k,n,o,x,2,5
        The initial action note reads "accession". Subsequent actions on the accession should be entered into the database.
      13. 700 a, d
      14. 773 a,t
  5. Print off two copies of the record from the user interface in III. Place one in the accession file, and place the other in the collection file for the collection. If there is not a collection file for the collection, create one.
  6. After initial arrangement, basic description, and preservation triage, the accession should be placed in sequence by accession number in the processing queue.
  7. Only after arrangement and description is complete will "p" change to "o" in the item record.