GUIDELINES FOR THE CURATION OF GEOLOGICAL MATERIALS

Cooper (1982), Mayer (1974, 1976), e.g. William Bean's distinctive brown-inked
rectangles; BN(NH) yellow disks; Geological Society green rectangles.
Dealers' labels are commonly distinctive but the data contained has been
shown sometimes to be inaccurate, so do not accept information uncritically.
1.3.5.4. Nature of materials
By establishing the nature of the ink, or paper used for labels and marks, it is
sometimes possible to gain some clue to their general provenance.
ENTRY DOCUMENTATION
PREAMBLE
The procedures which are used to record the receipt and onward passage of any
material coming into a museum have been collectively termed initial or Entry
Documentation. At this stage, there is no distinction between material which is to
be permanently acquired by the museum and catalogued and that which is only
temporarily in the possession of the museum. Entry Documentation therefore
represents both a holding record of an item, and the first phase in the
documentation system which leads to the full acquisition and cataloguing of a
specimen.
For excellent general and specific advice on Entry Documentation, refer to the
MDA's Practical Museum Documentation, 2nd Ed. 1981 pp. 13-24.
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES
The ways in which material may enter the museum are as follows:
collected from the field;
material received for identification;
other donations and bequests of individual specimens or collections;
purchase;
loans;
exchanges.
We would expect the larger museum to have developed, at some previous date,
separate procedures for the documentation of inward loans and for material left
for identification (see B2.3). Smaller museums, or any other redesigning its
documentation procedures should consider processing such material as part of
normal Entry documentation.
The actions required of a museum curator in order to deal with material
entering museums can be summarised as follows:
1. Completion of a numbered record in order to establish specimen identity,
origins and circumstances of entry.
2. Preparation of temporary labels equating specimens with written records.
Duplication guards against loss.