Organization, Tracking, And Metadata: Bar Coding For Collections Management

Summary

Housing more than 15 million artifacts from over 8,000 archaeological sites, the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin has a significant need for high-functioning collections tracking systems. As part of our institutional digitization strategy, TARL has begun implementing a system of bar codes for collections, with the goal of facilitating artifact retrieval and replacement as our collections are used for research, education, and public outreach. The system is inspired in part by work with proprietary database and bar code systems, but is designed to be as inexpensive and as functional as possible for TARL's immense but unorganized collections, which have been amassed over 100 years. Within one year of beginning this project, TARL expects to have 75% of our collections accessible through the bar code system. Collecting bar code system metadata will also help us track and quantify our collections' use for internal reporting purposes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Boxed but not Forgotten (Again!): The Importance of Collections-Driven Research   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 922