accession number

American  

noun

1. the individual number or serial designation identifying specifically any of the items, as books or records, acquired by a library, collection, or the like.

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accession number British  

noun

1. library science the number given to record a new addition to a collection

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Etymology

Origin of accession number

An Americanism dating back to 1875–80

Example Sentences

The researchers found the fossils at GSI headquarters in Kolkata, amid other vast vertebrate collections and without an accession number.

From Science Magazine • Feb. 1, 2023

The specimen, determined to be 1.6 million years old, was given the accession number KNM-WT-15000, but it is better known as Turkana Boy.

From New York Times • Aug. 11, 2022

Taxon names indicate: genotype or subgenotype, GenBank accession number, age, abbreviation of country of sequence origin, region of sequence origin, host species and optional additional remarks.

From Nature • May 8, 2018

All sequencing data from this study have been deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus under accession number GSE92966.

From Nature • Mar. 28, 2017

Never use an old accession number for a new book, even though the original book has disappeared from the library.

From A Library Primer by Dana, John Cotton