SoCal Regional Forum - June 2018

This presentation will discuss integration tools between Aeon and ArchivesSpace, beginning with the ArchivesSpace-Aeon Fulfillment Plugin on the ASpace Public User Interface. This plugin allows researchers to request materials in a specific ASpace record and automatically send the request to the researcher’s Aeon account. The researcher can edit the request if needed, and then either schedule an in-person appointment or order a reproduction. Next, we’ll look at the ArchivesSpace addon for the Aeon client. This enables staff to import ArchivesSpace records into Ares for requesting purposes. The presentation will also cover configuration options and next steps in integration development. The Atlas Systems GitHub page can be accessed at https://github.com/AtlasSystems

From November 2017 to June 2018, we undertook a project at UCR Library to align description of archival collections across ArchivesSpace, Online Archive of California, and bibliographic systems (our local Millennium catalog and OCLC). We were able to leverage the ArchivesSpace API as a core component of the project for automating bulk updates and exports, and to use Python scripts created during the project to develop reusable tools that eliminate reliance on manual cleanup of ArchivesSpace-generated EAD and MARC files in our regular workflows.

We’ll share approaches and lessons learned for automating previously manual processes, gaining fluency with the ArchivesSpace API, collaborating across Special Collections and Technical Services, managing archival data across systems and record types, and growing project-based work into lasting changes.

In this presentation, I will discuss various aspects of migrating accession data from Microsoft Access database into ArchivesSpace, including issues with data as it lived in Access, working with stakeholders involved, and data clean-up.

Until recently, the University Archives at UCLA managed at varying degrees their accessions and unprocessed collection information through the use of a Microsoft Access database. I, as a processing archivist for University Archives materials worked in consultation with the University Archivist and the Collections Data Archivist to determine key data to retain and workflows for migration.

In preparation for the migration of this information into ArchivesSpace “accessions” module, a large amount of clean-up needed to take place, and the open source tool, OpenRefine was utilized to carry out the clean-up. The presentation will briefly cover challenges encountered and tools utilized to support successful migration in ArchivesSpace.

Prior to 2015, Cal Poly Pomona’s Special Collections and Archives had never been headed by anyone with formal training in managing special collections. Most staff practices did not align with national standards, and collections were acquired haphazardly. New staff came on board beginning with our department head, Katie Richardson in 2015, and me as the Library’s first Archivist in 2016. One of our first projects was to survey the collection. We quickly discovered that provenance had not been a concern and many collections were badly conflated. Documentation was inconsistent and scattered throughout the department files, and sometimes in boxes with collections.

I spent a lot of time searching the department files and pulling together what I could find. Occasionally there were Gift Agreements, but usually there was only a print out of an email exchange or a note in old monthly reports. I decided to use ArchivesSpace to create “retroactive” accession records to pull together the documentation and make it quickly findable when it came time to process collections. Since starting at Cal Poly Pomona two years ago, I have created 766 retroactive records dating from 1968 to 2016, all of which have some form of external documentation. Many of these accession records are linked to new resource records as we work through our processing backlog. They have also been useful for co-locating donations from a single donor to re-establish provenance and creating “artificial” collections for materials from a variety of sources (for example, our collection of wine photographs.)

The Caltech Archives is using the ArchivesSpace public user interface as a navigation layer for digital collections stores in our Islandora digital asset management system.

Over the last few years, we have digitized three of our manuscript collections. We have provided navigation of these digitized collections by hosting a linked finding aid within Islandora itself. As we've considered how to improve this finding aid interface, we've decided to take advantage of community development of the ArchivesSpace public interface, and to use it—and, redundantly, the Online Archive of California—to replace our Islandora finding aid navigation and provide a superior user experience for researchers.

By creating a digital object in ArchivesSpace for each object in Islandora—each of which in turn represented a tangible paper folder—we're able to provide linked folder level navigation of our digitized collections with thumbnail previews. Our next steps include integrating the aesthetics and functionality of the two platforms to provide a more seamless experience as users travel between ArchivesSpace and Islandora.

This presentation will share ArchivesSpace’s new Awesome List repository, the efforts of the Awesome ArchivesSpace Working Group to create it, and how the community can get involved. Awesome ArchivesSpace is an awesome list. It points to resources (code, blog posts, anything with a URL, really) regarding ArchivesSpace created by the community that are dispersed around the web. Resources are loosely categorized by broad topic.

The intended audience for the list is those who have decided to adopt ArchivesSpace (or already have implemented ASpace) and need some help on where to go next in a specific area, both ArchivesSpace members and non-members. Awesome ArchivesSpace was initially populated with three categories of resources: Migrations, Plug-ins, and Integrations. Through that work, additional categories of interest were identified: Implementation, Scripts, and Trainings and Documentation.

The ArchivesSpace community has ownership over Awesome ArchivesSpace and we strongly encourage the ArchivesSpace community to add links to these categories as well as welcome new category suggestions. This presentation will share this great new resource for the ArchivesSpace community, as well as demo how anyone can contribute.