Hi Vickie, 

Records registries are often discussed by archivists and further discussion
of them can be found in the books on the history of archives and archival
practice. It was a way of providing a high level of detail about specific
sets of documents that often were used to provide legal rights and protect
legal interests. Later it was often used to record a high level of detail by
secretarial types believing it was the best way to provide a high level of
efficiency to filing systems, but involved a great deal of labor to keep up
to date and complete. Today archivists often use a more streamlined approach
to tracking modern records.

Today, the use of bar-coding often serves to generate the number and record
the information on the document through label application that used to
involve a clerk and hand tools, and a report listing the barcode with the
associated document serves to create a log of registered documents, or a
registry.  In the old days, this was all done by hand by applying a
sequential number to the document matching the order entry in a physical
log. The purpose was often to provide a numeric name alternative that could
be unique and used to catalogue a document without elaborating on each
detail and also helped to avoid the idiosyncratic naming issues in a filing
schema.  Numbers are discrete, whereas linguistic naming can be arbitrary. 

For example, if you were recording a record series, say birth certificates,
a registry, however made, would record (perhaps)the year of issue and the
sequential number of a particular document say 2009-001.  Or, it could
record the number of certificates issued from the beginning of that
particular system, say # 2000001, for a very old and busy system. You could
also further clarify with coding, BC2009.001 (Birth Certificate number 1,
issued 2009) and so on.  A log (or registry) showing the particulars
associated with that numbered certificate would constitute a registry,  It
could show name, date of issue, place of issue, mother, father and so on, as
extensive a series of particulars as you wished to make.  A reverse registry
( or index) might list the certificates by father's name, or place of issue
first. 

Hope this helps. 
   

A.S.Elizabeth Fairfax
Island County Records and Information Management Program
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
x5569


-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Huntsman, Vicki
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 11:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] Records Registries

Does anyone know sources of information about records registries

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