Accession Number formats can be defined by your insitution. The format of accession numbers impacts on how records can be searched, so it's important to be careful when setting them up. Feel free to contact Vernon Systems for any advice or assistance on setting up or editing Accession Number formats.
When defining Accession Number formats you can indicate whether duplicate accession numbers are to be absolutely prohibited, or allowed after a positive response to a warning message. For example, while it is usually desirable to maintain completely unique accession numbers, there may be situations such as a merger between two institutions, or historic errors in registration which occurred prior to computerisation, which have resulted in certain number sequences being duplicated. The system's ability to check the uniqueness of each accession number can be turned on and off. You wish to maintain these historic numbers rather than assign new numbers to one set of items. You can turn off uniqueness checking during data entry of these records, and turn it back on afterwards to prevent future incidents of duplication.
You can also make use of this field's sensitivity to the Department and Accession Date fields - i.e. when defining Accession Number formats you can specify which departments and which inclusive dates a particular format applies to. Thereafter, when you enter that Department name, or an Accession Date within the specified range and click in the Accession Number field, the appropriate next consecutive Accession Number for that department or those dates will appear.
Not only does this facilitate data entry, it acts as a protection against assigning incorrect Accession Numbers. Once you have defined the criteria that apply to a particular Accession Number format, the system will check to see that the criteria have been met, and if not, that Accession Number format will not be available for use in that instance.
For example, you may have specified that Accession Number format A applies only to items accessioned between 1961 and 1980 (inclusive) and that Accession Number format B applies only to items which are part of the Decorative Arts Department. Thereafter, whenever you enter a new accession number into the system, the system will check to see if an Accession Date has been entered for the object. If this date doesn't match the specified criteria (e.g. if it doesn't fall between 1961 and 1980), Accession Number format A will not be available for use for that object. The system will also check to see if a department has been entered for the object and if it doesn't match the specified criteria (e.g. if it is not the Decorative Arts Department), Accession Number format B will not be available for use for that object.
Note that if no date and no department have been entered for the object, these will not be checked by the system, and all accession number formats will be available.
Accession Number Format rebuild, which is found via Tools menu > Accession Number Tool > Format Rebuild, should be used by sophisticated users, or after consultation with Vernon Systems. Rebuild can be a lengthy process.
