[Archivesspace_Users_Group] Issue with importing EAD into ArchivesSpace: <unittitle> elements with ID attributes

[Noah Huffman]

Hi Jeff,

We use the id attribute of the component tag in EAD (<c> or <c0x>) to link from finding aids to digital objects in our repository.

On EAD import, the component ID attribute value is mapped to the archival object ref_id field in ASpace. On EAD export, the ref_id maps back to c/@id.

So, you might consider adding those unique identifiers to your component <c> or <c0x> tags instead of <unittitle> tags.

-Noah




From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org <archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org> On Behalf Of Suszczynski, Jeffrey
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2018 2:54 PM
To: archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org
Subject: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Issue with importing EAD into ArchivesSpace: <unittitle> elements with ID attributes

Hello, all -

I've searched through the listserv archives and didn't find anything directly related to the issue I am about to describe; apologies in advance if I've missed something and this topic has already been discussed.

At the University of Rochester, we have some finding aids that I've programmatically exported from ArchivesSpace, then modified, adding the attribute 'ID' to our <unittitle> elements so that we can use unique identifiers as a means of linking from our finding aids to digital objects in our instance of Islandora...

>From everything that I can see, this ID attribute for <unittitle> is valid EAD, and the XML does, in fact, validate in oXygen when I test.  However, when I import the finding aid into ArchivesSpace using either the API or the web admin interface of ArchivesSpace, the EAD imports but the ID attributes are stripped out.  I discovered this when later exporting the finding aid (either via the web admin interface or the API) - all of the <unittitle> elements were intact, but no longer had ID attributes... I've tried several tactics in attempts to preserve those ID attributes, thus far to no avail.

Is there a configuration tweak or workaround that anyone is using to accomplish something similar?  It seems strange that ArchivesSpace would silently remove valid EAD attributes upon import, so hopefully this is something with an obvious solution that I've overlooked somehow.

Many thanks in advance for any ideas you may have!

Jeff

Jeff Suszczynski
Web Developer, River Campus Libraries
University of Rochester



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