Create an accession record for any donation or transfer of material to SCUA's collections. Thus, anything that comes through our doors should be entered into the SKUA database and treated as an accession, even if it is part of an existing collection. The rare exception is when material is donated anonymously or in some cases individually by University departments. These types of transfers/donations usually go into a queue to be added to the University Archives without any official documentation.

There are two ways to create accession records in SKUA:

1. Click add from the SKUA home page:

2. Click 'add accession' from the accession list/search results:

The only required fields for accessions are 'Number' and 'Date received'. However, please do your best to enter all the relevant information for each accession. This is especially critical with University Archives transfers, since the accession record will be the primary access point for University records.

REQUIRED

The accession number takes the form “yyyy-nnn” where y is the year in which the accession is recorded and n is an integer sequence beginning at 001. The three-digit integer sequence begins at 001 with each new year. The best way to determine the next accession number is to sort the accessions list in descending order by accession number. This can be done by clicking the 'number' heading twice:

In the past, we added accession “decimals” to accession numbers if we wanted to group like accession using a single accession numbers. The decimal would distinguish the different records, e.g. 2001-001.1, 2001-001.2, etc… This practice has been deprecated.

Check this box if the accession is an accretion to an existing collection.

REQUIRED

Select the date (yyyy-mm-dd) the accession was received. This field defaults to the current date but can be changed using the calendar icon to the right of the field. The date must be formatted yyyy-mm-dd, but if you use the date picker, all will be well…

This field exists to hold information migrated from the previous database and doesn't have much purpose in SKUA. Consider it deprecated and use the collection field, which allows you to formerly connect the accession to an existing collection.

Start date of the material in the accession. If only one year is represented, use this field.

End date of the material in the collection.

Provide the full title of the object(s) being accessioned, whenever possible in keeping with DACS conventions. If the accession represents an addition to an existing collection, follow the form “Carl Oglesby Papers (addn.).” Do not use abbreviations in an accession record. If an organization is known commonly by an acronym, use both the acronym and its expanded form in the entry, e.g. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).“

For books, artifacts, and other items not formally associated with a collection, provide a brief description of the material and its source if relevant and an inventory in the description field.

he description field is a free text field in which to record details about the accession, including a more detailed inventory or listing, details about the subject of the collection, or special notes on handling, provenance, condition, etc.

This field records a formal connection between the accession and a collection that it is part of. For example, if you are creating an accession for an addition to the Peter Simon Collection, you would select the Peter Simon Collection from the list in field. Please connect your accession to an existing collection record whenever possible.

Since this is an autocomplete field, start typing the collection name in the field and the collection should appear on the list. Select the collection name and it will be added to the accession record:

The field searches the entire collection record so you might need to type most of the collection name before you see it appear on the list.