An Accession Number (sometimes called a Document ID) is a unique number assigned by a particular database as an additional means of locating a specific article. Note that an Accession Number is distinct and unrelated to a document’s DOI number. For more information about DOI numbers, please refer to this FAQ.
Many Library databases assign an Accession Number or Document ID, including EBSCOhost. See example in screenshot below. The Accession Number included in an EBSCOhost record is an identifying number of an article in the database. If you know the accession number of an article, you can search for it by entering AN as a search tag in EBSCOhost's Boolean search screens, followed by the number.
While Accession Numbers are created as a unique identifier within a database, unfortunately, searching by Accession Number can be tricky and unreliable for a number of reasons. First, these numbers are assigned by the databases and are subject to change without warning. Further, the same article may be in more than one database, and thus will have a different accession number. Finally, you must already know which specific database (e.g., CINAHL, Business Source Complete, etc.) contains the article in full text to know where to search.
