Barcoding

An objects conservator finds enlightenment at the Museum Computer
Network conference (pace all you who have passed here before, but aren't
some of those sighs about damaged books and fallen barcodes related to
the substrate and adhesive? Seems you can roll yer own now):

Computype (800-328-0852 for samples) custom-makes bar code labels on any
substrate, with any adhesive (they live in the same town as 3M, as in
#415 tape).  Barcode labels come in a delightful variety of sizes and
colors, ranging from aspirin-sized to foil-concealed to woven tape to
heat-resistant metal (so when the museum burns down, you sift through
the ashes for the tags and turn them in to your insurance company). They
can be printed with your existing accession numbers, or as a random set
to be cross-referenced by the computer, assuming it's not down when you
need it.  So a 7 mm long label printed on Tyvek and laid down on an
artifact between two layers of B72 is not so different from present
numbering systems; with a little adaptation we could have much better
location control (an impressive description was given by the Canadian
Art Bank, which manages 50-70,000 moves a year using bar-coded objects
and locations), and could begin using barcodes to streamline repetitive
reports, as Bob Futernick has pioneered.

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 6:31
                 Distributed: Sunday, December 6, 1992
                        Message Id: cdl-6-31-002
                                  ***