Documenting Your Collections
Info-Muse Network Documentation Guide

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Permanent Location Date (Storage Location)

Definition:

Observations:

1. The inventory and location of specimens are essential for proper management of collections. This field should be completed when the collection is inventoried.
2. A blank field means that the specimen has not yet been inventoried. After the inventory, this field should not contain any uncertain, approximate or partial dates.
3. This field is used in conjunction with the Permanent Location Site fields.

Entry rules:

1. Enter the date in the form YYYY dash MM dash DD, in numbers only (Y for "year," M for "month," D for "day").
   Example

   A specimen placed in storeroom 423, on shelf 3 of unit C, on November 26, 1988

   	Permanent Location Site 1	storeroom 423
   	Permanent Location Site 2	unit C
   	Permanent Location Site 3	shelf 3
   	Permanent Location Date	1988-11-26

2. If you move a specimen, remember to enter the new date in the Permanent Location Date field and the new location in the Permanent Location Site fields. It is important to keep an audit trail of such dates. Archive information on previous dates.
3. If you know that you have a specimen in your collections but cannot find it, write "unknown" in the Permanent Location Site 1 field and the date of this observation in the Permanent Location Date field.
   Example

   A specimen not found during the inventory completed on February 7, 1992

   	Permanent Location Site 1	unknown
   	Permanent Location Date	1992-02-07

4. This field may contain multiple entries separated by a semicolon followed by a space.