Catalog and Box Numbering System

Owned by Lowell Skoog
Last updated: Nov 09, 2014
1 min read

Catalog Numbers

Catalog numbers for the Mountaineers Archives have the form MTR.xxxx.yy.zz:

  • MTR – Fixed prefix identifying the item as part of the Mountaineers collection.
  • xxxx — Year the item or collection was cataloged.
  • yy — Catalog sequence for the given year. (Example: "2007.3" designates the third catalog entry in 2007.)
  • zz — (Optional) Individually cataloged item in collection xxxx.yy. Further subdivision is allowed as needed.

This numbering system applies to everything except books, which should use Library of Congress numbers.

Box Numbers

Boxes in the Mountaineers Archives should use numbers of the form yyyymmdd.xx, where yyyymmdd specifies the year, month, and day when the box was labeled. The final element, xx, is a sequence number, in case more than one box is archived on a given date. Example: 20141108.1

Box numbers aren't permanent. The can be created and destroyed as needed. The numbering system is intended to ensure that every box in the archives has a unique ID number.