Convergence of PracticeMerging library, archive, and

museum collections management within EMu

KE EMu User Conference, 17 October 2012

Pooja Budhraja, Brian Wilson – The Henry Ford

• Dedicated in 1929; opened to public in 1933

• Five primary units:• Museum and Village• Imax Theater and Assembly Plant Tour• Benson Ford Research Center

• Houses the Archives and Library

• 1.5M onsite visitors per year • 1200-1500 employees and 650 volunteers• $50M yearly operating budget

Archives and Library• 9 FT and 4 PT staff; 6-10 volunteers• 2500 onsite researchers per year• 2500 remote reference requests per year

History and Operation

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Collections

Museum and Village• Rosa Parks Bus; Wright Cycle Shop

Archives• Over 18,000 cu. ft. (6400 linear ft.)• Ford Motor Co. records, 1903-1950s• Henry Ford personal papers• Trade Catalog collection• Institutional records

Library• Over 43,000 book titles• Over 2000 periodical titles• Open to public; non-circulating

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Making Connections

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Working Together

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Digital LAM Project

• Three Phases• Establish broad “wants/needs”• Create/import archival description within EMu• Revise delivery interfaces

• Representation from Program Management, Registrars, IT, and Archives

• Place archival items in collection context• Reduce initial amount of individual description required

• Provide information about collections without digitized content• Enable public search across store of archival description• Increase velocity of digitization

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EMuEMu

Internal Users External Users

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Progress to Date

• Converted 900+ hardcopy inventories to pdf format• Work done under prior external grant

• Established core project team• Implemented EMu Test environment• Created local Archivists’ Toolkit instance• Constructed Metadata and Field cross-walks

• In process of resolving shared fields

• Tested EAD import and XSLT• Modified EAD template and customized XSLT

• Begun creation of example archival collection in EMu

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Record Structure and EAD Import

Accession

Collection

Series I <c01>

Series II <c01>

File <c02>

File <c02>

Item <c03>

Item <c03>

Multimedia

Multimedia

csv import

template or csv import

ead import

manual

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Parent/ChildAttachment

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Accession 232, World’s Fair Photograph series

• Created using EAD import, record templates, and csv file imports

• 5516 records• Collection level: 1• Component level: 202• Item level: 1771• Multimedia: 3542

• Not fully digitized (~40%)• Complete archival description

Accession 232, World’s Fair Photograph series

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Ford Motor Company Records StructureFMC Collection

Photographs RG

Engineering Photographic

Photographic Department

Accession 232, World’s Fair series

General series

Industrial Relations RG

FMC Archives

RG No. 2 through No. 19

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Plant Construction series

Renovated Assembly Plants series

Northern MI Operations series

Ford Rotunda series

Ford News Bureau series

Photographic Library series

Photographs RG:

• 16 accessions

• ~ 500,000 photographs

• ~ 1M digital images

What We Are Finding

• Differing professional practices

• Local practices of The Henry Ford

• EMu practices and implementation

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Differing Professional Practices

• Archival provenance, context, and collection• Description at an aggregate level – “Are things findable?”• Granularization of data – removal of context

• Terminology – common / disparate terms• Archival hierarchy - Similar to Village/Districts/Buildings/Rooms?• Location – Intellectual and physical• EAD and CDWA (metadata) relative to DACS and CCO (description)

• Archivist use of multiple date ranges for single entity• Example: Inclusive and Bulk Date ranges for collection

• Differing EAD best practices• <unitdate> within <unittitle> or separated

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Local Practices of The Henry Ford

• Terminology and Meaning• “Item-Level Cataloging”• Content versus Structure – Defining title field versus form of title

• Object ID requirement for object records• Application to archival intellectual-level components• Added “-X” suffix to collection ID for <c>’s

• Location• Granularity of data – Collection shelf range and/or specific box/folder

• ObjectType field• Defines item or catalog record? Or both?

• Using cross-walks to define “shared” fields• Title defined in Main Title field as concat of <unittitle> and <unitdate>• Extent written to Measurements tab • Dates captured on Creation/Date tab

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Date Example:Ford Motorsports Records, 1957-1968 (bulk 1963-1967)

Bulk dates entered as additional dates here to commonize with Registrars practice.

[EAD] Component tabCreation/Date tab

Inclusive dates only written to fields here.

EMu Practices and Implementation

• Handling of multiple date ranges for single item/entity• No bulk date field(s)

• Lack of container field• Writing box/folder data to Physical Facet field temporarily

• Function of Archives “Tree”• Visibility; drag/drop; position control

• Subject / Controlled Access term import• Tied to Parties Module; creation of duplicate records

• Other Parties Module fields• Accession, Finding Aid Author, Revision By, etc.

• Duplicate fields across multiple tabs• Suppress/hide three of seven tabs• Mixing of data about collection and data about collection description

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What’s Next

Short Term• Continue build-out of sample archival collection within EMu

• Focus on resolving shared fields such as Title and Date• Develop output formats

• Finding aid form and EAD XML• Handling of Library collection data – Discovery not management

• Reuse/transform/import existing MARC record data• Use of Related Objects to connect collections and items

Long Term• Public and internal facing website redesigns• Explore potential use of narratives module

• Collection level description (scope, bioghist, etc.)• Review of item-level metadata

• Can we define a “light” record for publication?

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Contact:

Thank You.

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Pooja BudhrajaDatabase ManagerThe Henry Fordpoojab@thehenryford.org

Brian WilsonDigital Processing ArchivistArchives and Library, The Henry Fordbrianw@thehenryford.orgtwitter: @brilwil