Recommendations

These recommendations are for the default values. The labels should be able to be changed by implementers.

Top-Level

Repositories

• unchanged

Collections

• unchanged

Digital Items

• previously Digital Objects

Unprocessed Material

• new top-level item

• gathers together records that may be flagged unprocessed somehow

Subjects

• unchanged

People and Organizations

• previously Names

Record Groups

• previously Classifications

Object-Level

Accession Records

• previously a top-level item

• recommended to make these records only available at the object level

Administrative Information

• previously Summary

Dates

• unchanged

Physical Description

• previously Extents

Related People and Organizations

• previously Agent Links

Subjects

• unchanged

Description

• previously Notes

Media Formats & Access Information

• previously Instances

Contents & Arrangement

• previously Components

Comments & Discussion

Leaving in this document to show some of the reasoning we used in coming to the recommendations.

Top-Level

Repositories

Collections

• 2011 recommendation: Resources

• Current recommendation: Keep

  • "Collections" seemed to be well understood by users in the usability testing.

  • Lets change this to "Collections" (Sue)

Digital Objects

Accessions

• 2011 recommendation: Accessions

• Current recommendation: (not sure users understand or care about accession records; does anyone have evidence one way or the other?) Agreed.  Most archives will spawn resource records if they want accessions made discoverable.

  • If an institution wants to make accession records publicly available, using something like Unprocessed Material might make it more clear to users what they might find under it. Also it should be noted on the browse listing and record detail page exactly what a user is seeing. —TK

    • Agreed (Sue and Matt Francis)
      
      

Subjects

• 2011 recommendation: Subjects

• Current recommendation: 

  • (it is unclear whether users find subject browsing useful from the usability testing; more review and discussion may be required)

    • I am going to vote for making subject browsing a feature, since we use it all the time (Sue)

    • I agree with Sue (Jessica Crouch)

Names

• 2011 recommendation: Names

• Current recommendation: Keep

  • (it is unclear whether users find agent browsing useful from the usability testing; more review and discussion may be required)

  • People and Organizations would make it more clear what kind of names are found in this area. —TK

    • Agreed.  And as above, we use it all the time (Sue)

    • Ditto, Sue (Jessica)

Classifications

• 2011 recommendation: N/A

• Current recommendation: I'm still not sure what this even means, so not sure what to do with this.  Repository site map?

  • This seems to be functionality that different institutions can use in very different ways, similar to Repositories above.

  • After reading Scott's comments, I'm concluding that Classifications refers to record groups.  This is also a fairly technical term that is only common to records managers and institutional archivists, so I think we will need someone who uses classifications to weigh in with a more user-friendly term (Sue)

  • I would just ask for those of us who don't use it, we can suppress this in our implementation of the front-end.–Susan Pyzynski

  • After reading through the comments I would favor "record groups" over classification, while making the label customizable. (Matt Francis)

Object-Level

Summary

• Recommendation: Administrative Info

  • Reasoning: Summary sounds too much like what one would find in an abstract. This information is of little use to archives users, except the identifier.

• Summary of what? I dont think the Admin info (e.g., Descriptive Rules) is helpful for patrons.  Keeping collection identifier is a good idea.

  • I vote for getting rid of Administrative info at the object level.  Its pointless (as I tried to point out).  Pulling different info in here, and then labeling it Summary, or even Scope and Contents, would be applicable.  Again, it will depend on what information we choose to actually display here (Sue)

  • While I agree that some of the information under the "summary" is not the most relevant at an object level, I do think that the "conditions governing access" and "conditions governing use" fields can be worthwhile to present at an object level...though by no means do I think they have to appear under a section called "Summary or "Administrative Info". Of course, to take full advantage of displaying these fields it would need to be set-up to inherit from the nearest higher level when there is not data present at the object level. (Matt Francis)

Dates

• Recommendation: Keep

Extents

• Recommendation: Physical Size & Scope of Material

  • Reasoning: Extents is jargon. By changing the label archives users will know whether or not they care about this info. The priority on the page should be moved down as well.

Agent Links

Subjects

• Recommendation: Keep

Notes

• Recommendation: Description

  • Reasoning: Notes is too casual. This is the most important information for someone looking at records.

Instances

Components 

• Recommendation: Child Records / Component Records / Specific Components / Noted Components

  • Reasoning: None of the options is ideal, though Inventory from Sue below is better. Components is the right word, but no users understand what that means when they first see it. Something is needed to express the hierarchy and the fact that there is potentially more detailed information in the records below.

• Inventory

  • Or even "Contents" (Sue)