[Archivesspace_Users_Group] a thorny top container question

[Jessica Wagner Webster]

Hi everyone,

I wrote in briefly about this yesterday but have spent some time today investigating my issue and hope someone might be able to help.

I've recently discovered what might be, for us, a big challenge: we finally were able to migrate ASpace to 1.5x and are working with Top Containers for the first time. Because of the way I initially coded and ingested our legacy finding aids into ASpace, with each box as a c01 and folder as a c02, when we did the migration and ran the barcoder plugin, each folder was given its own top container record. So now all of our data is messed up. I have compared the EAD for these collections to new cataloging we've done recently, and I see how it's different: for the properly-done EAD, the secondary (folder) container is listed with a reference to the parent container (the box, the top container), like this:
<c01 audience="internal" id="aspace_fb309c25cd76d16bd68380d39e533e57" level="file">
        <did>
          <unittitle>Test 3</unittitle>
          <container id="aspace_431c5d28165f5651a24c5726e9e3ad72" label="mixed materials" type="box"
            >2</container>
          <container id="aspace_c723cf0a9ace466e98820e969f6a0a4f"
            parent="aspace_431c5d28165f5651a24c5726e9e3ad72" type="folder">1</container>
        </did>
      </c01>

While the bulk of our records look, instead, like this, when exported out of ASpace:
  <c03 audience="internal" id="aspace_71896952bbbc0e5bbfc8ab391ee0584f" level="item">
            <did>
              <unittitle>Municipal Research 82- </unittitle>
              <unitid>IPA_s3C_b004_f09</unitid>
              <unitdate normal="1917-02/1917-02">1917 February</unitdate>
              <container id="aspace_0ffffc4b7ac67e62d2492c5de693cc12"
                label="Mixed Materials [aspace.28566.box.4]" type="box">4</container>
              <container id="aspace_3d9216a2a30dcb8c9865328693d1316f"
                label="Mixed Materials [aspace.28566.folder.9]" type="folder">9</container>
            </did>
          </c03>

This has created a large number of folder-level top containers. I'm totally stuck as to how to fix this without manually doing it in ASpace. I'd love it if there was some way to transform this EAD into Excel, fix things there, and then transform it back into EAD that can be ingested into ASpace. But I wouldn't know where to start; I have decent skills in XML but am pretty limited in generating XSLT on my own. Does anyone have any ideas? Has anyone dealt with a similar problem? Does anyone know of resources or templates that might help?

Thanks, I really appreciate it! I'm a one-person shop here and would really benefit from the expertise of the group.

Best,
Jessica


Jessica Wagner Webster
Digital Initiatives Librarian, Assistant Professor
Baruch College, Newman Library
151 East 25th Street, Room 523
New York, NY 10010
(646) 312-1672
Jessica.WagnerWebster at baruch.cuny.edu<mailto:Jessica.WagnerWebster at baruch.cuny.edu>

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org <archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org> On Behalf Of Jessica Wagner Webster
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2019 4:48 PM
To: Archivesspace Users Group <archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org>
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Top Container List question- update

Hi all,

In looking at this further, it doesn't actually appear that the barcoder plugin issued multiple top container numbers for the same box, so disregard that part of the question- though each folder was also assigned a top container number by the barcoder. Is that expected? And are there any ways to work on these in batch?

Thanks again,
Jessica

Jessica Wagner Webster
Digital Initiatives Librarian, Assistant Professor
Baruch College, Newman Library
151 East 25th Street, Room 523
New York, NY 10010
(646) 312-1672
Jessica.WagnerWebster at baruch.cuny.edu<mailto:Jessica.WagnerWebster at baruch.cuny.edu>

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org<mailto:archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org> <archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org<mailto:archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org>> On Behalf Of Jessica Wagner Webster
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2019 4:41 PM
To: Archivesspace Users Group <archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org<mailto:archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org>>
Subject: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Top Container List question

Hi all,

I've been using ASpace for a long time, but only recently were we able to successfully upgrade to the 1.5x iteration and start working with top containers. When we upgraded, we used the barcoder utility as required, which generated top container numbers for our boxes; we don't have actual barcodes on our boxes. I understand that many of you might be past this phase of implementation, and maybe I'm missing some key information!

But I'm wondering now how to generate top container numbers for new cataloging- is there a way to generate these? How do I come up with top container numbers- what are they supposed to refer to, if they're supposed to be unique?

It seems like each box (or equivalent) is supposed to have its own container number and all folders (or equivalent) affiliated with that box are attached to that particular top container. However in our case, it appears that each item-level record was given its own top container number by the barcorder, regardless of the fact that they might have been in the same box? I'm not sure why this would be except as a fluke of our cataloging. If this is true, is there a way to batch edit our top containers to fix this issue?

If anyone could point me toward additional resources on implementing top containers, that would be great, too.

Thanks,
Jessica

Jessica Wagner Webster
Digital Initiatives Librarian, Assistant Professor
Baruch College, Newman Library
151 East 25th Street, Room 523
New York, NY 10010
(646) 312-1672
Jessica.WagnerWebster at baruch.cuny.edu<mailto:Jessica.WagnerWebster at baruch.cuny.edu>

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