When many museums go through an inventory of their collection or are working through the backlog of items to catalog into PastPerfect, there are times when items are found that have no number or have no definitive history of how they came to be part of the collection.
Examples:
- Items found in a recently discovered box in the attic of a Historic House or Museum
- Items that come up in an inventory with no Object ID number on them
When these types of items appear in your collection, it is important to catalog them with as much information as you can. Because each item needs to be assigned a unique Object ID number in the collection, many organizations use a "Found in Collection", or "FIC", number to identify the items when cataloging.
The numbering system that you use to create your FIC numbers should coincide with your current numbering system. Below are two examples of some FIC numbering systems that are commonly used:
System 1: YEAR FOUND . FIC . order found during that year
This allows you to document the year the item was found in the collection and the order in which the items were found. The "FIC" lets you know at a glance that the item was found in collection instead of using a standard accession number. If you are concerned with sorting these records by Object ID number, PastPerfect suggests using leading zeroes with your FIC numbers so they sort correctly.
For example:
1995.FIC.243 = 243rd item found in collection in 1995
2010. FIC.005 = 5th item found in collection in 2010
When the new year rolls around, you would start over with the FIC numbers, just as you would for your accession numbers. In this example, when the year turns to 2011, your items found in collection would start again at 2011.FIC.
System 2: FIC . # order found in
If the year is not important to when the items are found in collection, or you are not using the year in your accession numbering system, you can use a two-part FIC number. This will help you keep track of how many items overall have been found in collection, regardless of year.
For example:
FIC.10 = 10th item found in collection
FIC.208 = 208th item found in collection
While you are cataloging, you may eventually discover the true provenance and accession information for some of these items. If you find the real Object ID number for these items, place the FIC number into the OLD # field, and assign the correct Object ID to the item and the catalog record. For others, the provenance may never be found. Your Collections Committee should have the final decision on what to do with these items.