Last week at the Athenaeum, I catalogued some t-shirts.
That of course was only part of the exercise, I needed to accession them, basically generate a unique catalogue number, record the catalogue number, and then attach the catalogue number to the artefact.
The baseball caps were easy - basically an acid free luggage tag looped around the strap with the accession number written on it.
The stubby holder and the t-shirts were more difficult as they lacked anchor points for the luggage tag.
So what to do?
Well I didn't know what was best practice, and unfortunately no one else did. But YouTube came to my aid, with a couple of short videos, one from New Zealand, the other from the UK.
It's all really simple - cut a length of acid free cotton tape, write the accession number on the tape using an archival pen (or even an indelible laundry marker), wash the tape in distilled water to remove any nasties, dry, and attach using a pair of very simple loose stitches - something even I, who am a bit of a klutz with a needle could do.
Given we don't have a conservation lab, probably the simplest would be to prepare the tags at home, and transport them tacked to a bit of acid free paper, and then attach them at the Athenaeum ...
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