[Nhcoll-l] Unused catalog numbers

[Callomon,Paul]

It used to be our practice, in the days of paper ledgers (which we started in 1891), to go back and use up any blank rows that had been issued but never used. We regret it now, as it turns out to interfere with certain forensic investigations, especially where the date of cataloging was not recorded for the interpolations and/or their surrounding entries. 

Nowadays, we often have people simultaneously cataloging into our database, so numbers are often not contiguous within a given body of material. That's not an issue, though, because nowadays the date, time and person cataloging are automatically logged. 

Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates

Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia
callomon at ansp.org Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170