Deaccessions in Specify

[Grant]

What is a Deaccession?

A deaccession is the formal process by which a museum or collection institution removes an object or specimen from its permanent holdings. This usually happens when an item no longer fits the institution’s mission, is redundant, in poor condition, or needs to be repatriated or returned to its rightful owner.

Each deaccession record must have a deaccession number. It can optionally be assigned a type, support multimedia attachments, and include links to agents, along with various free text and number fields.

Linked Tables

Deaccessions can be linked to one or more of the following interactions:

• Disposal
• Gift
• Exchange Out

Create a Deaccession

1. To create a new deaccession, navigate to Interactions in the navigation menu. From there, select ‘Decaccession’ in the list of tables:

   

   If you do not see it in the list, click on the (pencil) icon in the top of the dialog to add it to the list of options.

2. The Deaccession form for your collection will appear.

   

   At the top of the form, you will see the fields for ‘Deaccession Number’, ‘Deaccession Date’, ‘Type’, ‘Status’ and ‘Remarks’. There are a couple of calculated fields (total preps and items) which are set automatically once the record is saved.

   To assign a custom field format (e.g. YYYY-######) for your deaccession numbers, you can follow this guide: How to Change or Add a Field Format

   The ‘Deaccession Agents’ subview can be used to add any agents involved with the deaccession process:

   
   • Total Preps shows the count of all Preparations associated with the Deaccession.
   • Total Items shows the count of all items associated with the Deaccession.^[1]

   At the bottom, under the Attachments separator, there is a button that can be used to add multimedia attachments to the record. You can also see a read-only preview of the ‘Modified By Agent’ and ‘Date Modified’.

   There are also 3 subviews for the other interactions connected to Disposal:

   

   To add existing Disposals, Gifts, or Exchange Outs, you can click on the (search) icon next to the corresponding header. This will open up a search dialog where you can find the appropriate record to link to this deaccession:

   

   To create a new Disposal, Gift, or Exchange Out, you can click on the (plus) icon next to the corresponding header. This will open a dialog where you can create a new record and link it immediately to this deaccession:

   

Link a Deaccession from another record

If you are looking at a Disposal, Gift, or Exchange Out already and you would like to add one to a Deaccession, you can do so by using the ‘Deaccession’ query combo box:

If there is not yet a deaccession, you can click on the (plus) button to create a new ‘Deaccession’ record.

If you are looking for an existing one, you can type the first few characters of an existing deaccession number to start quickly searching for existing ones. You can click on the (search) button to use the full query builder if you have having trouble.

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1. You can learn more about virtual fields here: Virtual Fields ↩︎