[Archivesspace_Users_Group] Instances

Fri May 12 10:17:45 EDT 2017

Yeah Joan, we were having this discussion just last week. You’re not alone.

The current version of the AS PUI makes the display of multiple containers attached to one component look a little less goofy, since the container information only displays on the page reserved for the lowest component level to which a top container is attached. One of my beefs with the current version of the PUI is that instance information isn’t displayed in the “Record Tree” view, which means you have to drill down to the component level to see what containers you need to request. The mock-ups of the new PUI suggest that this has changed in the new version. I will be curious to see how the out-of-the-box styling of the new PUI displays multiple containers in the tree view—hopefully not like what you’re getting.

You’re not using the PUI right, something homegrown? Maureen is right that you could just do some XSLT customizations so that your containers display as ranges.

I’ve been persuaded that, as Christie notes, listing all containers rather than container ranges does help with tracking and requesting containers, and that this feature can be compatible with a good user experience—as long as your delivery platform displays this information in a well-designed way. Some platforms are better at displaying this information in an intuitive, non-clunky way than others (i.e. ASPUI>static finding aid).

Best,

Jordon

Jordon Steele
Hodson Curator of the University Archives
Special Collections
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
3400 N Charles St
Baltimore, MD 21218
410-516-5493
jsteele at jhu.edu

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org [mailto:archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org] On Behalf Of Maureen Callahan
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2017 11:35 AM
To: Archivesspace Users Group <archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org>
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Instances

Hi Joan,

The only thing I would add to what Christie said is that I think that you have the right instinct to model each of the boxes separately (so that you can assign barcodes, track locations, etc.), and in addition, it may indeed be useful to researchers to see each individual box in the finding aid. This way, they can request boxes 1 and 2 in your circulation system on Monday, and then request box 3 when they're ready on Tuesday.

One other point -- with all things systems, it's always possible to display this differently than it's encoded and it's almost always a bad idea to encode for display. It might be worth requesting a change in the ASpace public interface so that boxes are each represented in the database (there's a top container record for each of them) and it just says "1-4" in the display in the public interface (or if you're making XML EADs, you can make your XSLT stylesheet do this for you).

Thanks,
Maureen

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Peterson, Christie <cspeterson at email.gwu.edu<mailto:cspeterson at email.gwu.edu>> wrote:
Hi Joan,

You're asking a really good question, and thinking about this with all the right principles. There just isn't a single right answer.

It may look weird to have four instances attached to a single description, but that's how we do it in most cases. It allows you to assign barcodes and track locations for each box independently.

The example where you feel like you're doing folder level description is a useful model if you can make a meaningful distinction between the content in each box and want to save archivists and researchers the bother of pulling and looking at all of them to determine which they want. In your example above, it looks like each box has a different set of dates attached to it, so that would be a good reason to use this method. As a side note, we use other level = box to indicate when we're actually describing a whole box and not a folder. **trigger debate on that practice now**

Cheers,

Christie

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Joan Curbow <CurbowJ at bvu.edu<mailto:CurbowJ at bvu.edu>> wrote:

Dear all,

Description and instantiation are different things. Describing the content is not equal to what boxes the content ends up in. Correct? But something isn’t making sense to me.

I wanted to describe a collection at the series level, so in the instances, I chose my top container, but I have four boxes for my first series, so my container type is “Box” and I put 1-4 for my indicators, but this doesn’t calculate four document cases, does it? Doesn’t it only calculate 1?

But if I make four instances, that looks stupid. See below.

[cid:image001.jpg at 01D2C972.24DFD7F0]

It also results in a finding aid that looks like this:

[cid:image002.jpg at 01D2C972.24DFD7F0]

If I do this:

[cid:image004.jpg at 01D2C972.24DFD7F0]

I’m really describing at a file level, which I don’t want to do.

What am I not understanding?

Sincerely,

Joan Curbow
Reference Librarian and Archivist
Buena Vista University Library
Buena Vista University
610 West Fourth Street
Storm Lake, Iowa  50588
712.749.2094<tel:(712)%20749-2094>
www.library.bvu.edu<http://www.library.bvu.edu>

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Christie S. Peterson

University Archivist
George Washington University Libraries
704H Gelman Library
cspeterson at gwu.edu<mailto:cspeterson at gwu.edu>
202.994.3925<tel:(202)%20994-3925>

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Maureen Callahan
Sophia Smith Collection Archivist
Smith College Special Collections
Northampton, Massachusetts 01063
T. 413 585 2981 C. 215.863.1860
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Pronouns: she/her/hers

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