[Archivesspace_Users_Group] Agents with topical (or other) subdivisions in ASpace

Tue Aug 11 16:31:00 EDT 2015

Hi Matthew,
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by no distinction between creator and
subject with regards to agents. Do you mean that you have two agents, one
with the role of 'creator' and one with the role of 'subject'? Or do you
mean it is bringing in things that should be classified as subjects as
agents? Subjects are separate from Agents in ASpace (see an example from
one of our collections here:
http://findingaids.brandeis.edu/repositories/2/resources/20), but it is
possible that the Archon import tool is only interpreting these as agents
and not subjects.

Max -- I'm not a cataloger or a metadata expert so just personal opinion,
but #2 sounds the most feasible given how ASpace displays agents and
subjects. Either that somewhat of a middle ground: in that example agents
would be UMich and American Brass Company, and Subjects would be the whole
term (University of Michigan--Students--Political activity.) That might be
a bit more clear for users.

Thanks,
-Maura

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:20 PM, Matthew J Gorzalski <mGorzalski at lib.siu.edu
> wrote:

> Are you an Archon user?  We have related agent problems coming from Archon
> to ASpace.  Our test migrations show that any collection that has a
> corporate/personal name as both the creator and as a subject will migrate
> BOTH into ASpace under the agent field with NO distinction between creator
> and subject.  Our example is an artificial collection called Morris Library
> Photograph Collection where Morris Library is both creator and subject.  In
> Archon you can clearly distinguish between these two roles because Creators
> and Subjects are separate sections.  But in ArchivesSpace they are both
> lumped into Agents and given that generic non-descript person icon.  So it
> is confusing for researchers to see two Morris Library entries under Agents
> because their roles are not distinguished.  This same public interface
> design flaw works the same for any collection using a name as subject and
> creator.
>
>
>
> Mat Gorzalski
>
> SIU Carbondale
>
>
>
> *From:* archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org [mailto:
> archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org] *On Behalf Of *Max
> Eckard
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 2:45 PM
> *To:* Archivesspace Users Group <
> archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org>
> *Subject:* [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Agents with topical (or other)
> subdivisions in ASpace
>
>
>
> Hello ASpacers!
>
>
>
> We've been working on importing agents into ArchivesSpace, but have run
> into an issue. As an example, we have a number of <corpname> elements that
> are subdivided with topical subjects, like so:
>
>    - University of Michigan--Students--Political activity.
>    - University of Michigan--Faculty.
>    - American Brass Company--Strikes.
>
> The issue we've encountered is that there is no space in ASpace for agents
> that are subdivided in this way. Note: we are not talking about agents with
> primary and subordinate names (with periods in between them)--ASpace
> handles these just fine! We've been thinking about a number of ways to
> handle this:
>
>    1. We could divide up these terms so that the first term gets imported
>    as an agent (in the examples above, corporate entity) and the rest of the
>    term gets imported as a subject (or a subdivided subject). We've
>    experimented a little with this here
>    <https://github.com/bentley-historical-library/vandura/compare/master...eckardm:master>.
>    The problem with this approach is that subdividing names/agents is a
>    longstanding practice here (and totally acceptable in MARC), and making a
>    change like this would require making an even (arguably) bigger change to
>    descriptive practices here and cause issues with exporting MARC records
>    from ASpace.
>    2. We could just leave the whole string, dash dashes and all, as the
>    primary form of name. This could work, but it seems inelegant, since each
>    variation would be imported as a new agent, even though we're only
>    referring to one.
>    3. We could change these to subjects, but that doesn't seem quite
>    right either, since agents can have the role of subject.
>
> We've been trying to consider all angles, including what affect a change
> like this could have on researcher searching and browsing. Now we're
> wondering what you all do. Do you have subdivided agents (<corpname>s,
> <famname>s and <persname>s)? If so, how have you imported these into ASpace?
>
>
>
> Thank you for your time!
>
>
>
> Max
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> *Max Eckard*
> *Assistant Archivist for Digital Curation*
>
>
>
> Bentley Historical Library
>
> 1150 Beal Ave.
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2113
> 734/763-7518 <734.763.7518>
>
> http://bentley.umich.edu/
>
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>

-- 
Maura Carbone
Digital Initiatives Librarian
Brandeis University
Library and Technology Services
(781) 736-4659
415 South Street, (MS 017/P.O. Box 549110)
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
email: mauraa at brandeis.edu
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