Container Management Project (Oct. 2022-May 2024)

The Container Management Project was undertaken in October of 2022 and completed in May 2024. It came about because of retrieval problems for collections that were given new call numbers during a previous RECON (Retrospective Conversion). At that time, some finding aids, many of which had "point" numbers, were combined into a single finding aid if they seemed to "belong" together because of matching subject matter, author, etc. This may have been done to simplify and minimize work during the project. However, when the library began to use ArchivesSpace, every finding aid had to have just one sequence of box and volume numbers. The so-called "merged" finding aids had several sequences because they had once been separate finding aids. ArchivesSpace differentiated those individualized box and volume sequences as unique IDs, but retrieval was complicated because with a single call number, there had to be a single run (sequence) of boxes and volumes, By this time, staff had for the most part assigned these new sequences in ArchivesSpace. But the boxes and volumes in the stacks had not received new labels with their new box and volume numbers.   It was decided to focus on affected collections containing bound volumes that were not relabeled after the resulting new sequence of box and volume numbers. See below for a list of these collections which now have new labels for all of their volumes. This list of prioritieswas compiled by the Stacks staff in Public Services. The work was carried out by the end processor. Every collection on the priority list was addressed in full. There are still, however, more collections that require these same updates.

Here are examples of new call numbers representing finding aids that were "merged" during RECON;

MS Am 980-986
MS Am 1356-1356.1
MS Am 2030-2030.4
MS Am 539, MS Am 539.5, MS Am 540
MS Eng 951-951.1, 951.3-951.23, 951.25-951.29
(Spreadsheet of completed call numbers)

Call numbers : 103
No. of volumes relabeled : 1925

*Further call numbers are being added as time permits.