To continue ... (these are my personal views, by the way)

I have two reasons for worrying about meaningful reference codes:

1 they cannot cope with complexity. If the provenance of some records
is complex then a meaningful reference code can obscure rather than reveal
provenance. If, for example, records have moved from one body to another
during their active life then you have serial multiple provenance and what
reference code can accommodate that? But if only part of the provenance is
reflected in the reference code, but people are using the reference code as
a source of provenance information, then they may make incorrect
assumptions about provenance and be misled by the very tool we intend should
help them

2 they are not efficient and can lead to 'loss' of records.
Complicated reference codes are not conducive to speedy and efficient
retrieval and replacement of records on the shelves. If people have to stop
to work out where a record fits in a box then it is going to take longer and
not only are service levels at risk but, in the rush, they may put the
record back in the wrong place so that they are, to all intents and
purposes, lost

Susan Healy
PRO

> ----------
> From: Richard Taylor[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 06 April 1999 13:24
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Multi-level referencing
>
> Susan
>
> Hooray! Of course it's not heresy Susan.
>
> When I started in my previous job at Railtrack I discovered that our
> civil
> engineers had devised a system to code all individual railway lines in the
> country with a four-character code (three letters plus optional number) to
> create the railway equivalent of road numbers.
>
> However, rather than start off at Penzance with "AAA1", which would have
> allowed them to end up in the North of Scotland with something like "MMM9"
> (thus leaving plenty of spare codes for future new lines) they could not
> resist the temptation to make the letter codes "mean something".
>
> Thus we ended up with "ECM1" ("East Coast Main" [Line]) and "LEN2" ("Leeds
> Northern") etc., and every proposal for a new code had to be checked
> against a database to see if that combination of letters and numbers had
> already been used as a mnemonic.
>
> Ever since then I have vowed that all reference codes and other
> identifiers
> should have one purpose only - to act as a shorthand way of uniquely
> identifying an individual archive item - which is a job best done
> (usually)
> by creating a single running number sequence for all reference codes. Why
> bother creating higher-level reference codes which only "reference"
> paragraphs of descriptive text - only the lowest level of referencing
> refers to an actual document.
>
> As Susan says, our other requirements of recording provenance and
> re-creating original order are discrete tasks - don't overload them onto
> the poor old reference code. Use parent/child relationships between
> entries in a catalogue, or even create an "original sort order" field.
> If
> differentiation between the same running number in different repositories
> is required, then get yourself into the National Register of Archives, and
> use your NRA repository code as the prefix to the document item number.
>
> Despite our oft-repeated maxim that archives are not defined by age or
> medium, many of our professional habits are simply shibboleths
> originating
> in a printed paper catalogue mentality, not genuine professional
> principles.
>
> This is the kind of discussion we should have more of!
>
> Cheers
>
> Richard Taylor
>
> ==================================================
> Richard Taylor
> Curator, Archive Collections
> National Railway Museum
> Leeman Road
> YORK YO26 4XJ
> ENGLAND
>
> Tel +44 (0)1904-686289
> Fax +44 (0)1904-611112
> Email [log in to unmask]
>


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