[Archivesspace_Users_Group] Revised Proposal for Container Management Enhancements - Call for Community Input

[Christine Di Bella]

Hi Robin,

Thanks so much to you and your colleagues at Harvard for distributing this specification for community comment. We really appreciate your interest in making this development work as relevant to the overall community as possible and contributing the results for consideration for the core code. To that end, I wanted to make a few comments based on past experience or current development that you or others may find helpful.

On changing the columns that appear for browses or searches of Location records - we often have requests for columnar displays of browse or search results to be configurable, including in the Staff Interface Enhancement Working Group's recommendations. Our developers are currently working on more configuration options for Accession, Resource, and Digital Objects browse displays and the search results display in the staff interface, located in the preferences area of the application and summarized in this JIRA: https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/ANW-929. A test server with this work is at http://wiprefds.lyrtech.org/staff/ (standard admin/admin login). We expect the final version of this work to be in the next release of ArchivesSpace. I'd encourage adding Locations to the type of record that can be configured in this area. With the established pattern I think this may be fairly easy to do.

I have a similar comment about the proposed changes to the linked records displays, though I've heard this mentioned much less frequently. Given that different fields may be of interest to different people, I think it's likely to be desirable in many situations. I don't think this would fit the other pattern, though. It may be one of those things where if it's relatively simple to do, it would be worth it in extending the relevance across many different users/institutions.

Lastly, you are able to delete barcodes in bulk at this time. When using the Rapid Barcode Entry feature in Manage Top Containers, leaving a barcode field blank removes the barcode without replacing it with a new barcode. This was actually always the case, but we fixed a bug with the indexing in this area (https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/ANW-973) recently that didn't make it clear this was happening. This will be in the next release of ArchivesSpace.

Those were the things that stood out to me. I look forward to talking more as your development work progresses. Thank you for getting the community involved proactively!

Christine

Christine Di Bella
ArchivesSpace Program Manager
christine.dibella at lyrasis.org<mailto:christine.dibella at lyrasis.org>
800.999.8558 x2905
678-235-2905
cdibella13 (Skype)

[ASpaceOrgHomeMedium]



From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org <archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org> On Behalf Of Wendler, Robin King
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2019 1:19 PM
To: archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org
Subject: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Revised Proposal for Container Management Enhancements - Call for Community Input


Dear ArchivesSpace Community,

The Harvard Library has been reviewing container and location management functionality in ArchivesSpace and we are proposing to make enhancements to this functionality that we would like to contribute to the core code. With these enhancements, we hope to make finding, viewing, and updating information related to containers and locations in the staff interface more efficient and effective.



Some of you may remember a proposal we distributed this time last year. A variety of factors delayed the work, so we have significantly revised the proposal based on the valuable feedback provided by the ArchivesSpace community and informed by Harvard archivists' increasing experience with container management in ArchivesSpace. Some proposals have been removed, while others have been added or altered.



Additions include

  *   Return to Top Container search results from viewing an individual Top Container record
  *   Bulk or batch function to create new Top Containers, associate existing Locations with them, and link them to multiple existing archival objects.
  *   Bulk operation to delete barcodes from Top Containers
  *   File-upload function to add Locations to Top Containers
  *   Ability to merge Location records



The most significant changes to previous proposals include the following:

  *   The proposed additional indicator fields and ILS Bibliographic Record ID field in Top Containers have been removed.
  *   The proposed Note field and Inactive checkbox for Locations, along with all functionality associated with inactive status, have been removed.
  *   Automatic scoping of Container Profiles, Locations, and Location Profiles by repository appears to be too complex, given the community request to make repositories repeatable and the desire for it to be an installation configuration option. In lieu of that, the revised proposal adds a repeatable, optional repository field to container profiles and adds a facet for filtering by repository to browse results for Container Profiles and Locations.
  *   Proposed functionality around Location status has been removed



The revised draft proposal is attached to this email and we are asking for community review and feedback. The proposal includes the rationale for the changes, a list of database fields to be added, user stories describing the specific changes we are proposing, and mockups of the related updates to the staff interface. Please note that the proposal represents a superset of the work we may be able to complete in the next couple of months, and that not all the proposed changes will be addressed at this time. Another caveat: some of the desiderata require further technical design that will determine what approach will be taken. These will be investigated in consultation with Lyrasis ArchivesSpace staff.



If you have questions or feedback, please email me at robin_wendler at harvard.edu<mailto:robin_wendler at harvard.edu>. We will be accepting comments through Wednesday, December 18, 2019.



We look forward to receiving community input.



Best,

Robin



Robin Wendler

Library Technology Services

Harvard University

90 Mt. Auburn St.

Cambridge, MA 02138

617-998-5457

617-495-3724

r_wendler at harvard.edu<mailto:r_wendler at harvard.edu>


Robin Wendler
Library Technology Services
Harvard University
90 Mt. Auburn St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-998-5457
617-495-3724
r_wendler at harvard.edu<mailto:r_wendler at harvard.edu>

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