2019-09-26 Agenda and Notes

Date

Sep 26, 2019

Participants

• @Dallas Pillen

• @Valerie Addonizio (Unlicensed)

• @Edgar Garcia (Unlicensed)

• @James Griffin (Unlicensed)

• @Sarit Hand

• @Randy Kuehn

• @Joshua Shaw

Goals

Introductions

2019-2010 Work Plan

Discussion topics

Notes

Introductions

• Starting with a quick round of introductions

• Who we are, where we are from, why we are interested in ArchivesSpace

Dallas Pillen

• Archivist for metadata and digital curation at U. Michigan (Bentley Historical Library)

  • Serving their third year on TAC

  • This is their second term of service for the Integration Sub-team

    • Initially wanted to be on the integration subteam

• U. Michigan is using ArchivesSpace, Archiveamatica, Aeon, and Archiveit

  • Over the past number of years, ASpace has served in a central role for managing descriptive metadata

  • Looking to integrate ArchivesSpace with other systems which are used

Joshua Shaw

• Darthmouth

• Split between Rauner (Special Collections) and overall technologies group for all libraries

• Using ASpace since release 1.3

  • Customizations are both local and from Hudson Molonglo

  • Niche integration with OnBase (document management system)

  • Library just switch to Alma/Primo

    • Also, early days with working to use Preservica

Edgar Garcia

• Northwestern University

  • Served as the tech. Lead going from Archon to ASpace over two years ago

NU is currently hosting ASpace with Atlas

• Wanted to be on the integrations subteam, at the Library addresses integration issues

• Recently also started using Aeon

• Alma/Primo integration also desired

  • Also on the Integration Subteam during the last term with Dallas

Valerie Addonizio

• Consulting archivist at Atlas (began in June)

• Archivist with 10 years of experience

• Only integration used was Aeon, but has a lot of opinions on how it can be improved

• At Johns Hopkins previously, undertook a migration to ASpace in 2016

Randy Kuehn

• Systems Librarian at the University of Louisville

• Using ArchivesSpace to back in the beta days (going back to version 1.x)

• Undertaking a migration of data from Voyager into ArchivesSpace

• In the very early stages of migrating CONTENTdm assets into a Samvera application

• Looking at how they can integrate ArchivesSpace with Samvera/Hyrax

Sarit Hand

• Sarit is a digital archivist with the Associated Press

• They are currently trying to integrate ArchivesSpace with Preservica

• They would like to get more involved with this process

ArchivesSpace Integrations Form

• This is structured as a Google Form

• Adopters can share information about their systems integrations

• Dallas needed to request access in order to properly edit this form content, but everyone should be able to access this now

• Links to this were sent in an e-mail this morning

Integrations Survey

• This survey was shared with the community during the last term in June

• Valeria alluded to this during their introduction

• This was structured to find integrations which ASpace users would like to see

• Also, this tries to establish connections between institutions who might seek to collaborate

• A brief preview of the responses was showcased at the ArchivesSpace member forum

• There were 87 responses from the survey

• Within this term, this Subteam will form action items based upon the responses which were captured by this subteam

• All members should have access to the responses

Questions for Members

• Does the Subteam serve as a mouthpiece for the community? Or do we form our own opinions as a group? How much do we actively do ourselves?

  • In the past, Dallas (within the sub-team) moved technical documentation to another GitHub repository and updated this documentation

  • Tried to do this in a way that opened for contribution

  • Integration Subteam in the past has been heavier on the side of soliciting feedback from the community

  • The Sub-team served as a coordinating influence in bringing groups together

  • During the last term, integration of Alma discussions were facilitated by members of this sub-team

  • There is nothing preventing us from becoming more actively involved during this term

• Do we have to actually contribute code? Or can we make recommendations to improve upon existing code supporting systems integration?

  • Project Team can be provided with some guidance based upon the findings of members of this group

Brainstorming for this Year

• One should please reference the work plan and retrospective for the previous year

• It looks as if the documentation aspect of tasks wasn’t quite finished during the last term

  • Improving the documentation should be a priority

• Is there a definition for “integration”?

  • Does it depend upon the institution?

  • In the case of the Associated Press, ASpace is the master, the preservation system is the slave

    • Any data changed should be changed in ASpace first, and then synchronized to the preservation system

  • A definition is offered in https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ADC/pages/17137746

  • There should be a Seamless data flow between systems

    • No prescriptive advice is offered

  • For all of the integrations at the Bentley, ASpace is the system of record

    • Information can be written in other systems, but it must be pushed to ArchivesSpace

• What role ArchivesSpace should play between systems?

  • Last year, the Sub-team came up with a set of steps for starting up an integration between an external system with ASpace

Retrospective

• Last year, we did improve portions information regarding current integrations

  • However, we can still improve in documented cases of in-progress and desired integrations

• Have there been successful integration cases?

  • There are a few which have achieved the goal which they have set out to accomplish

  • A manageable scope is typically key to ensuring that the integration is complete and seamless

  • Alma integration is complex

    • It’s really helpful if we can come to an agreement about what this should look like in greater detail in order to avoid ambiguity with regards to goals

Work Plan

• Perhaps we might also create an internal guide for the next Subteam? Further, perhaps we should also create a calendar?

• This might ensure that the subteams keep the documents updated

  • In the past, the sub-team did encounter struggles with communication and knowing when work was ready to be done

  • Every year, common issues do come up with the documentation not being updated

• One of the things to be added to the calendar should be to have everyone review the current integrations for ASpace

Integration Documentation

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ADC/pages/17137746

• We should find out what is on the board, and as a part of that review, update the documentation accordingly

• How should this be accomplished?

  • Joshua

    • Look at the project pages which are linked…in some cases integrations will have code repositories

      • If there is other information, we should look outside of just code

    • We should also look through the mailing list

    • It would be best to find the purpose and status of each integration case

  • Sarit

    • Documentation needs to be updated where it states “coming soon”

• Technical documentation for developers

  • Working across multiple, are different systems are all using the same fields to link with?

  • Maybe we should talk to ASpace developers, identify overlapping areas where it is a lot easier to provide communication across systems?

• How should we contact organizations and turn this information into something useful when they have no developers? This should be determined

• Also, please note that there are going to be integration features which are specific to each institution

• “Tier” - what does this refer to?

  • Referred to tiers of integration

  • During the last term, there was an implicit hierarchy to integration

  • It actually wasn’t an accurate ranking system, so it may need to be removed

Work Plan (Continued)

• Do we need to have a whole year plan now? Perhaps have short term goals now?

• October 15th is the deadline for each sub-team to submit a workplan for the entire year

  • There is limited time, and we want to ensure that we have appropriately scoped, achievable goals which are identified

  • We want to ensure that the Subteam does not overextend itself

  • We can revisit the workplan and evaluate goals as we proceed if we must

• What shall we do with the results of the integrations survey

  • This might just be synthesizing results and drafting a report for the Project Team

  • This might just be us reaching out to those interested in integrations

  • Do we want to publish the results?

    • Publishing the aggregate of the results as a rationale for proposed solutions would be best

  • For some of these solutions, the resources have existing solutions

Action Items

• Dallas will try and compile these points into a workplan for the next year

• Ensure that the Wiki pages are updated

• Improve internal documentation (timeline/calendar for each year)

• List all known integrations

• Establish communication channels

• Review the results of the survey

• Decide what we want to do with the survey results (submit proposals to the Project Team? Provide an aggregate of the results for the entire community?)

Scheduling Future Meetings

• Meetings will continue to just be determined by Doodle Poll

  • Dallas will send Polls for monthly for scheduled meetings

• We may need to meet together to check in asynchronously for furthering progress

• We should also meet in 2 weeks just in order to review the workplace

• Dallas will draft and share a poll for scheduling the next meeting in 2 weeks

Meeting was adjourned at 01:03 EDT

Action items