The Archivists' Toolkit presented at MARAC, November 13, 2010

The Archivists’ Toolkit---

MARACNovember 13, 2010

Holly MengelProject Manager

PACSCL/CLIR “Hidden Collections Project

About the Archivists’ Toolkit• The Archivists’ Toolkit™, or the AT, is the first

open source archival data management system to provide broad, integrated support for the management of archives.

• It is intended for a wide range of archival repositories.

• The main goals of the AT are to support archival processing and production of access instruments, promote data standardization, promote efficiency, and lower training costs.

• the application supports – accessioning and describing archival materials; – establishing names and subjects associated with

archival materials, including the names of donors; – managing locations for the materials; and – exporting EAD finding aids, MARCXML records,

and METS, MODS and Dublin Core records.

• The AT project is a collaboration of the University of California San Diego Libraries, the New York University Libraries and the Five Colleges, Inc. Libraries, and is generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

About the PACSCL/CLIR “Hidden Collections” Project

• Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Library (PACSCL)

• $500,000 grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources

• “Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives” program

(http://www.clir.org/hiddencollections/index.html)

From the Vaux family papers at Haverford College

Project Goals

• Make accessible approximately 200 “hidden collections” at 23 PACSCL repositories– Process roughly 115 collections– Update legacy guides for roughly 85

collections• Establish a single access point for all the

“unhidden” collections made available via the project (and hopefully future collections processed by repositories)– EAD finding aid site

From the Lubin Film Company records at the Free Library of Philadelphia

Means to Achieve Project Goal

• Efficient and standardized data entry/finding aid creation in a minimal processing environment

• Finding Aid site (created and hosted by the University of Pennsylvania)– Standardized finding aids created at 23 repositories– Faceted searching

• A sustainable tool for repositories to use in future processing efforts

… The Archivists’ Toolkit• Creates DACS

compliant EAD finding aids at the click of a button!!!!– HTML– PDF

• Usable directly “out of the box”

• Can be customized via a style sheet

XML

HTML

PDF

How the Project is Using the AT

• Each repository hosts their own instance of the Archivists’ Toolkit– After finding aids are created, repositories

generate xml records.• Each repository creates a web folder which

contains finished xml records• University of Pennsylvania harvests these xml

records and they are presented on the PACSCL finding aid site.

Data Entry during Processing

Rapid Data Entry EXCEL

The Legacy Finding Aids …

• “Finding aids” is generous, at best.• Complete lack of standardization!• Formats include– Paper– Card catalogs– Word– Excel

• For our project (NOT RECOMMENDED), we do this work off site and do not look at the collection.

Legacy Finding Aids: Paper

• Re-Keying is the only solution UNLESS the paper document can be scanned.

• Whenever possible, enhance the biographical/historical note; scope note; and folder titles.

Legacy Finding Aids: Electronic

• Whenever possible, enhance notes and folder titles• Sometimes, depending upon existing structure, re-

keying is still the best solution.• OR--– Use Notepad ++ to separate fields– Paste into EXCEL– Use Matt Herbison’s code– Paste back into Notepad ++– Import into the Archivists’ Toolkit

Electronic Legacy Finding Aid Magic

What we LOVE about the AT

• Forces a degree of standardization across the 23 participating repositories– Allows for the centralized PACSCL finding aid site– Develops a support group of knowledgeable users for

future technological issues as processing continues• Allows processors to spend time on collections NOT

coding EAD• Allows the project to train processors for all work, not

just individual repository’s systems.• Hierarchical aspect of data management

What we DON’T love about the AT

• NO spell check• Not entirely intuitive (although practice makes

perfect, in this case!)• Instance errors are not efficiently corrected.• No user inter-face• The Digital-object is not easy (AT ALL)

Archon + The Archivists’ Toolkit=

ARCHIVES SPACE

By Rebecca Goldman

Archives Space

• The New York University Libraries, UC San Diego Libraries, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Libraries are partnering to develop a next-generation archives management application that will incorporate the best features of the Archivists’ Toolkit and Archon. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the project team aims to develop a technical, sustainability, and governance plan for the new system.

• http://archivesspace.org/

Our Hopes

• From Archon– Awesome user interface– Digital Object presentation

• From AT– Flexibility– Hierarchical structure

“Unhiding” Collections

http://clir.pacscl.orghttp://findingaids.pacscl.org

From the Schuylkill Navy records at Independence Seaport Museum