This paper considers how knowledge has been organized around museum objects at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA), in what is known as British Columbia1. We trace the practice of cataloguing material heritage at this museum, through close examination of catalogue records and interviews with past and present MOA staff, reading from the first attempts at standardizing object nomenclatures in the journals of private collectors, to the contemporary practices associated with object documentation in the digital age. Through a critical cataloguing perspective; this paper plots the creation and use of museum record keeping systems in the particular milieu of Western Canada. This paper is part of a larger research project, “The Work of Repair,” which investigates museum documentation histories across Canada.