[Archivesspace_Users_Group] ArchivesSpace Update - January 2017

[Christine Di Bella]

[ArchivesSpace by LYRASIS]
January 2017 Update


Development

The ArchivesSpace team was pleased to release version 1.5.2 on December 8.

You can download the new release from Github at https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/releases/tag/v1.5.2. Please see the release page for a listing of all the new features and bug fixes included in this release. Please see the technical documentation <http://archivesspace.github.io/archivesspace/user/upgrading-to-a-new-release-of-archivesspace/> for information on how to upgrade your ArchivesSpace installations.

This minor release includes bug fixes and performance improvements, and addresses some minor layout issues in the staff interface.  This release includes development work completed by our development partner Hudson Molonglo (HM) as well as pull requests submitted by members of the community including Luis Martinez-Uribe, Alex Duryee, Dave Mayo, Chris Fitzpatrick, and Byron Roosa (apologies to anyone we missed in this list).

We want to thank these contributors and all those who participated in testing and provided feedback that fed into these improvements!

Let us know if you have questions or encounter problems executing the upgrade.

In addition to all the work that went into the 1.5.2 release, HM has been working with a small group to prepare an initial Technology and Development roadmap and performing analysis for upcoming refactor and repair work. The next major release of ArchivesSpace will be in March 2017.


Release Webinar

We are working on rescheduling the 1.5.2 release webinar that needed to be postponed due to a staff member's unexpected family health issues. More information on the new date and time will be available soon. For those who can't attend at the scheduled time, the webinar will be recorded and available on our website afterwards.



Staffing News

ArchivesSpace is thrilled that Laney McGlohon will be joining ArchivesSpace as the Technical Lead.

Laney is an information scientist, software developer, librarian, and self-described data wrangler with seven years of experience working with special collections and institutional archivists.  She has strong programming skills, experience with archival software including ArchivesSpace and a strong interest in outreach to the developer community.  Her experience working with archives and understanding of archival practices and data standards along with her extensive software development background will enable her to step into the ArchivesSpace Tech Lead role and hit the ground running.

Laney will be responsible for overall development of the software, management of a community-based code contribution process,  and will work with the community to engage a broader set of developers to participate in the project, providing technical guidance, support and leadership to create a robust developer community. Laney will serve as the primary contact with our development partner Hudson Molonglo (HM).

Most recently, Laney served as the Discovery and Access Engineer at Stanford University Libraries.  Before that she served as a Software Engineer at the Getty Research Institute and as Technology Consultant at the Museum of Ventura County. She has also worked at the University of Georgia and Raytheon Systems Corporation. Laney earned a Bachelor's of Science in Mathematical Sciences from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, a Master's of Science in Applied Mathematics from North Carolina State University and her Master's in Library Science from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Laney will officially join the ArchivesSpace team January 23rd.



Updates on the Public User Interface Enhancement project

The Public Interface development group recently provided an updated timeline and additional information on the progress toward the release of the new ArchivesSpace Public User Interface.  From Mark Custer, on behalf of the group:

"As many of you are aware, we have been aiming to have a candidate release ready for December 16th, with the official, production-ready release to follow in March 2017. However, we are behind schedule at this point, so we have decided to push back the candidate release date until the end of March 2017 to coincide with the next major release of ArchivesSpace.  Because of that, we don't expect the production-ready release to be available until June 2017. Even though we are three months behind our original schedule, a LOT of important progress has been made since August, including the following:

*         We have conducted and outsourced some really important and helpful usability<https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/display/ADC/Usability+Testing> and accessibility tests (thanks to many people at Harvard, Melissa Wisner at Yale, and WebAIM)

*         Search results have been enhanced, which now include additional description and context (e.g. repository, collection, etc.)

*         Searches can be limited by date ranges

*         Searches can be limited to a specific collection / resource record

*         Sorting options have been added, including the new ability to sort by the year of the described material.

*         Pagination features have been updated.

*         The new citation feature has been implemented, which will even work if you have JavaScript turned off

*         Mixed content and formatted elements display as expected (e.g. italics and bold text is supported, although we're still working out a way to support internal linking features).  Essentially what this means is that EAD tags won't display in the PUI!

*         A robust implementation of archival inheritance has been developed (see AR-1300<https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1300>), which is especially important since the ArchivesSpace PUI provides component-level result pages.

If you're interested to learn more about the new inheritance feature, here's a 10-minute screencast that illustrates how it works:  https://vimeo.com/195457286<https://vimeo.com/195457286>

So what features remain to be implemented?

There are some minor adjustments, such as:

*         Ensuring that all unpublished records do not display in the PUI. The ability to unpublish an entire repository and all of the material descriptions attached to that repository will be a new feature in the staff interface, by the way, which will coincide with the release of the new PUI. All repositories will be published by default, as usual, but you will now have the ability to suppress one or more from the PUI if need be, as requested in AR-1228<https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1228>.

There are also a few major features yet to be added or completed.  Here is a full list of those major features that we're still aiming to include in the candidate release:

*         Make comprehensive styling updates that will address aesthetic elements of the site as well as make the site even more user-friendly (e.g. not showing every facet on the right-hand side of the page immediately)

*         Add a single-scroll view of an entire resource record (i.e. the ability to review an resource record and all of its descendants without having to go to separate web pages for each resource component)

*         Add a container-only view of any resource record that has containers attached, which will users to "peek" inside each box to see the titles of the contents contained within each (taking advantage of the new top container model); or, barring that feature, we'll look at adding an Excel/CSV export option for that same type of flattened view.

*         Add the Request feature, which will generate an email with the information outlined in AR-1064<https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1064>

*         Finish up the Classification / Record Group views

*         Provide instructions on what can be modified easily and how, along with all necessary updates to the user manual

*         Update the "Collection organization" side panel so that it will include more links beyond just the links to any immediate children (as per the Cherry Hill design)

*         Conduct a final pass on the default labels used throughout the application.  These labels are really tough, sometimes, depending on the data that follows.  Of course, all of the labels in the PUI can be edited within an ArchivesSpace installation.

*         Add the PDF request feature

*         Provide a better user interface for those cases when a published digital object record is linked to a published resource, resource component, and/or accession record.

*         Update the metadata that is embedded in each HTML page to help optimize how search engines understand the ArchivesSpace PUI.

*         Time permitting, add the book bag feature (although this will likely be postponed)

As always, you can see the current state of the new PUI in our test corpus site at:

http://pui.hudmol.com<http://pui.hudmol.com/>

(Thanks, again, to Hudson Molonglo for hosting this website!)

You can also read the minutes of our development calls, at the following location on the ArchivesSpace wiki:

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/display/ADC/Meeting+Schedule%2C+Minutes

Once the candidate release is available, we will be seeking more feedback via an online survey, and we would especially appreciate all of the institutions who use the current public interface to weigh in heavily at that time. And for those of who have already provided feedback, either directly to me (mark.custer at yale.edu<mailto:mark.custer at yale.edu>) or by any other means, thank you.  It's really been appreciated!"



Membership Update

Our new members since December 1 include:

*         Hong Kong Baptist University

*         Kennesaw State University (Georgia)

*         Rhode Island State Police Museum Foundation

*         University of Texas at Austin

As of January 6, we have 313 General members, 11 Educational Program members, and 3 Registered Service Providers. If you are interested in your institution becoming a member of ArchivesSpace, please email us at ArchivesSpaceHome at lyrasis.org<mailto:ArchivesSpaceHome at lyrasis.org> for more information.



New Training Option

The ArchivesSpace Governance Board recently approved a new option for ArchivesSpace training. We are developing a new one-day Basics workshop that will be offered to hosts at a lower cost than our standard training offerings and open to participants regardless of ArchivesSpace membership status. We're particularly interested in working with local and regional archives groups as hosts and we welcome working within the financial constraints of these groups to make this kind of training as economical as possible. Please get in touch with Christine Di Bella (christine.dibella at lyrasis.org<mailto:christine.dibella at lyrasis.org>) if you or a group you know of would be interested in sponsoring such a workshop.


ArchivesSpace monthly updates provide news about ArchivesSpace community and program activities and are sent to our member listservs, the ArchivesSpace Google Group, and SAA's Collection Management Tools roundtable listserv, as well as being posted on the ArchivesSpace website. Please feel free to share this update with people you know who have an interest in ArchivesSpace but may not be on one of these lists.
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