BLOCK A

 

Welcome and Introduction to the Forum: A brief introduction to ArchivesSpace and the intent behind our first-ever Online Forum.

Christine Di Bella, ArchivesSpace - Christine is the Program Manager for ArchivesSpace and involved in all aspects of the program, working closely and collaboratively with the community, advisory groups, and Governance Board to set and implement the strategy and goals for ArchivesSpace. Christine has worked in archives for nearly 20 years, in a number of academic and non-profit settings including the Institute for Advanced Study, the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL), the 92nd Street Y, the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, and Harvard Business School. She received an MSI from the University of Michigan's School of Information and a bachelor's degree in English from Wesleyan University.


We’re on the Road to Somewhere: Navigating Your ArchivesSpace Implementation: This presentation will focus on what institutions should consider when starting an ArchivesSpace implementation, including creating a project plan for the process and tools/resources for importing legacy data, training, and engaging with the ArchivesSpace community.

 

So Much Data, So Little Time: Prioritizing Manuscript Collections for ArchivesSpace: This presentation will explore the prioritization process undertaken at the Watkinson Library for Special Collections and College Archives at Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut) for rewriting and entering approximately 45 manuscript finding aids into ArchivesSpace. The bulk of the manuscript finding aids at the Watkinson existed in the digital repository of Trinity College or in legacy print formats and did not conform to current standards such as DACS and EAD. This talk will examine the challenges presented to the Special Projects Associate charged with working on the project, as well as how she went about selecting collections for the project and contributing factors such as whether collections would require further processing.


“Where Did I Put That?" Using Locations in ArchivesSpace: A brief look at our pilot project to incorporate the location features in conjunction with our use of top containers in ArchivesSpace. Since our headquarters move in 2017, our two-thirds of our collections are stored off-site.  As we near the final stages of a full shelf reading and locator listing of both sites, we are evaluating the locations feature to determine if it will work for us. Will we be able to use ArchivesSpace as our sole repository for location information or will we continue to rely on an external spreadsheet to record this data?

 

Columbia University Libraries ArchivesSpace Migration: In 2017 Columbia University Libraries (CUL) undertook a multi-phase project to migrate archival data across several repositories into ArchivesSpace, hosted by LYRASIS. A main goal of the project was to consolidate description activities in the platform, which would serve as a single source of truth propagated out to the catalog, finding aids, and other discovery venues. CUL Columbia adopted a 3-phase roadmap: (1) migrate collection-level data and manage it solely in ArchivesSpace; (2) migrate finding aid data from an XML repository and merge with already migrated collection-level data, which will then flow out to a legacy publishing platform; and (3) adopt the PUI or a comparable front-end application, integrate it with discovery services, and decommission the legacy finding aid publishing platform. Along the way CUL developed custom tools and methods to review and remediate data as well as integrate AS with other applications. Completion of all phases is targeted for early 2020.

 

Integrations for Digital Objects


BLOCK B

 

Working with IT and ArchivesSpace: An Open Discussion: For many archivists, it is easy to get lost amongst the technical jargon within ArchivesSpace and for many IT professionals in libraries, navigating unfamiliar archival standards and terminology can be just as frustrating.  Panelists Laney McGlohon (Technical Lead for ArchivesSpace) and Blake Carver (Systems Administrator at LYRASIS) will be joined by Jessica Crouch (Archivist, University of South Carolina Libraries) and Patrick Milhoan (Archivist, Notre Dame) for this lightly moderated question and answer session about all things technical.  Please bring any questions you have ever wanted to ask about the technical side of ArchivesSpace or submit your question in advance to ArchivesSpaceHome@lyrasis.org.


Regional Discovery Networks


ASpace to Learn: Training Student Employees to Use ArchivesSpace: For many institutions, student employees play an integral part in processing of archival collections and data entry into collection management systems. In this presentation I will share some lessons I learned in the process of training student employees to use ArchivesSpace and the importance of having centralized training for ALL ArchivesSpace users.

 

The Implementation Roller Coaster: Danielle Butler, from the Central Arkansas Library System's Butler Center for Arkansas Studies will discuss the planning and implementation process for a locally hosted Windows Service instance of ArchivesSpace. This will include discussion of initial install, migration from Archivists' Toolkit, user guide creation, staff training, and data cleanup. 

 

It’s All About the Fit: Engaging Student Assistants, Interns, and Volunteers with ArchivesSpace: Not every student assistant, intern, or volunteer is right for ArchivesSpace. The software is complicated. It requires deep knowledge of foundational archival principles and the ability to quickly adapt to a new lexicon of application-specific terms. Like many archival repositories, my repository relies heavily on the inexperienced shoulders of undergraduate students to build finding aids and manage collections in ArchivesSpace. In this presentation, I’ll share some of the selection, placement, orientation, and mentorship strategies we use to ensure high quality work in ArchivesSpace by our amateur team of student assistants, interns, and volunteers. 

 

ArchivesSpace Implementation at University of Southern Mississippi Special Collections: In May 2018, Special Collections at the University of Southern Mississippi received the good news that ArchivesSpace was being implemented. The timeframe for converting legacy finding aids, however, was quite short – originally only six months. Due to time-saving initiatives, the conversion of 1,250 finding aids for processed collections was complete by February 2019. Head of Special Collections/Curator, Historical Manuscripts, Lorraine Stuart, will discuss decisions regarding the implementation and how the implementation has positively affected workflows.

 

Moving Up and Moving In: Last year, Pennsylvania State University opened a new off-site storage facility and moved approximately 13,000 containers of archival material into the new annex over the course of three weeks. The move resulted in thousands of rows of recently re-visited collections data. Historically, Pennsylvania State University’s archival location information resided in the local MARC record; however, during the move, location information for each container was exported from the Library’s catalog for batch updates. Following the successful completion of the move, the Head of Collections Management suddenly became the owner of a series of rows of recently corrected and newly re-usable data. Working with the help of the Cataloging Systems & Linked Data Strategist, the Special Collections staff is currently working to recycle thousands of rows of data to gain a new sense of control over local container management practices in ArchivesSpace. This presentation will detail how Penn State moved up from existing practices and is working to move in thousands of locations for top containers via the ArchivesSpace API. 


BLOCK C

 

Series of Tubes: Moving Subjects from MARC to ArchivesSpace Records: Overview of the process being used at Penn State to update ArchivesSpace resource records with subjects found in their MARC records.

 

Moving Metadata and Boxes: ArchivesSpace Migration and an Off-site Storage Move: The University of Arkansas Special Collections migrated to ArchivesSpace as part of preparations for an off-site storage move. Move-related deadlines and logistical considerations shaped our implementation in a variety of ways, from spurring the involvement of library-wide volunteers to necessitating integration of ArchivesSpace data into our facility’s inventory management system, Caiasoft. This session will offer an overview of what worked well, what didn’t, and what we’re still working out!


Keeping Tabs on ArchivesSpace: Our Present and Our Future - ArchivesSpace Program Manager Christine Di Bella will provide some background and a quick guide to resources that will help with the recurring question "What's going on with ArchivesSpace?"


Customizing the ArchivesSpace Public Interface: Some Simple How-Tos: ArchivesSpace’s public user interface (PUI) is a quick way to get started with making your materials web-accessible, but did you know that there are a number of easy customizations you can make to it, often with little or no development experience? In this session ArchivesSpace Tech Lead Laney McGlohon and Junior Developer Lora Woodford will walk through some ways you can get started on changing the look and feel of your PUI. Examples to be covered include deciding what should be included on the navigation bar, applying branding in terms of colors and logos, and enabling or disabling specific functionality.


Making the Case for ArchivesSpace