Report on the cataloguing standard, 1996–2001

REPORT TO THE STEWARDSHIP REP/2001/04

THE RECATALOGUING, 1996-2001

1. On taking the office in 1994 I found the Record kept in three

systems: a year-and-shoebox arrangement to 1986, an accession

register from 1986 which is sound, and a set of index cards

ordered by the colour of the folder, which is not.

2. The form adopted in 1996 — kind, year, sequence — is taken without

alteration from the practice of a county records office and is not

my invention. Its merit is that a person who does not know an item

exists can be told where to look for it in one line.

3. Eleven thousand two hundred and four items have been brought into

it. Nine hundred and sixty remain in the antecedents series, which

is catalogued separately for the reasons given in MEM/2007/02.

4. APPENDIX B lists one hundred and forty items whose date, origin, or

kind I have assigned on judgement rather than on evidence. Each is

flagged in the catalogue. Where a later hand corrects one of these

the correction is to be entered beside my entry and not in place of

it, so that the guess remains visible.

5. I have asked that the office not be renewed. The work it now needs

is conservation, which I am not trained in.