Current status and history of the ALAAC identifier series

Current

Beginning in August 2024, we are (returning to) using a single series of ALA Accession Numbers (ALAAC) for all new specimens, starting with number 280,001. We are also no longer registering these in the old ALAAC book, but in an online spreadsheet. These changes are intended to reduce errors in the application of ALAACs, and were discussed in this GH Issue

Allocating an ALAAC series

In the ALAAC allocation spreadsheet, fill in date, your name, the Arctos accession code, and a brief description of the specimens.
Count the number of specimens needing ALAACs (or estimate it accurately) and enter this into the ‘n’ field. The blue ‘first’ and ‘last’ suggestions will be calculated, but you must also fill in the white actual ‘first’ and ‘last’.
If there is a difference between the corresponding blue and white values, and error will appear in the ‘check’ column. This indicates an error somewhere in the spreadsheet.
Do not revise preexisting rows, as this will create an error across all rows.

When an ALAAC series has been claimed, apply these numbers sequentially to the specimens, using the number stamp.

The ALAAC book

A binder known as the ALAAC book contains pages recording the allocation of series of ALAAC numbers to collections by particular people (in early years) and to particular accession sets (since Arctos). These pages are being scanned (the photos named to reflect the ALAAC series within them), and transcribed.

Note that an old page in the front of the ALAAC book says there was a Wordstar file called ACC.LIS on the ‘Kaypro’. We currently have no idea if there is a copy of this file anywhere. However, the ALAAC notes from 1987-1992 are a dot-matrix printout, and probably correspond to the contents of this file.

The pages in the book are divided into Vascular plants, Bryophytes, Lichens, Algae, and a tiny Fungi section. The early mixed, non-prefix pages are in the Vascular section.

Recorded fields (date, collector, locality, accession, category) varied over the years. The ‘Category’ codes gave information about the origin and nature of the series: S = staff, E = exchange, G = gift, GD = gift for determination, C = student, P = purchase, O = other. Loans were not added to the collection and thus not recorded in the book.

ALAAC History

The ALA accession (ALAAC) series was started at ‘1’ for collections in the 1950s, with no prefix. These continued until 1981. The last ‘no prefix’ number is 99056. This original series contained vascular plants and cryptogams. In the main pages, the moss series were noted only as “Mosses”, but on separate “Bryophyte” pages the details of these series were given. For example, on page 2 of the main pages, series 7426-7659 were marked as Mosses, but on page 1 of the Bryophyte pages, series 7426-7659 are listed as from “Shelter - Interior Alaska, etc”.

Towards the end of the ‘no prefix’ series, mosses and lichen series were no longer noted in the main list, but the numbers were simply missing. The series appeared only on the bryophyte and lichen pages. The last moss series was: 98774-98836 in 1982. The last lichen series was 98727-98772 in 1982.

In March 1982 the total number of allocated series numbers were calculated – vascular (68,725), bryophytes (variously 18067, 17895, 17832 - unclear which), lichens (9709), algae (861) – and the new prefix series used the next number from this total as the starting number. The four prefix formations: ‘A’lgae, ‘B’ryophytes, ‘L’ichens, and ‘V’ascular plants. The last number in the no-prefix series, and the starting numbers in the prefix series were:

Algae: 65276; next: A862
Bryophytes: 98836; next: B17896
Lichens: 98772; next: L9710
Vascular: 99056; next: V68726

(In theory, 861 + 17895 + 9709 + 68725 should sum to 99056. They actually sum to 97190, indicating about 2,000 numbers missed from the overall sequence.)

As of today (2024-07-31), the last series given out end in: A11068, B43625, L39354, and V182504. Theoretically, these mark the total numbers allocated in each class, including (non-sequential) series within the non-prefix period. Hence a total of 276,551 ALAAC numbers should have been allocated. For reference, there are currently 269,924 ALA Arctos records.

Discrepancies with Arctos data

There are thousands of errors in the application of and transcription of ALAACs:

The last official no-prefix value allocated was 99056 (vascular). However there are 2,470 no-prefix ALAACs in Arctos larger than 99056, ranging from 99062 to 6744136 (gawk '$0~/^[ 0]*[1-9]+/ {if(gensub(/^[ 0]+/,"","G",$0)+0>99056)x++} END{print x}' alaac_values and gawk '$0~/^[ 0]*[1-9]+/ {print gensub(/^[ 0]+/,"","G",$0)}' alaac_values | sort -n | less)

Moving forward

Keeping track of four separate series is hard and has generated many errors in bookkeeping, what was stamped on the sheets, and in data entry into Arctos. There is no strong reason now to maintain separate Accession numbers. Moving to a unified accession number series, beginning at, say, 280,001, and keeping only a digital tally (well backed up!), will greatly facilitate managing ALAACs. Note that before then, the 32 Arctos records with erroneous ALAACs of >= 280,001 need to be fixed.

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