Top Containers - multiple Box 1

[Krystal Rycroft]

Hi ArchivesSpace users,

 

I’m fairly new to ArchivesSpace, and I’m an institutional / corporate archivist working on importing archival object records from acquired companies. Each had their own individual rule sets, descriptive practices, numbering systems, etc.

 

One issue I’m running into is having multiple Box 1. One company utilized a continuous numbering of boxes where each box number was unique, and another restarted box numbering with each new collection.

 

How do I avoid confusion where there are multiple Top Containers with the same indicator?  Has anyone run into this issue before? Did you try to create unique identifiers for each box? I don’t want to overcomplicate this, but I also don’t want to assign collections to the wrong boxes.

Should I avoid importing Top Container/Instance information during initial import and work on it manually afterwards?

 

Any help much appreciated!

 

Thank you,

Krystal

 

Krystal Rycroft, MISt | Corporate Archivist | Corporate Communications

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[Kevin Schlottmann]

Hi Krystal,

This happens to us regularly as well.  In the absence of distinguishing information, AS will combine top containers in the same resource. As a result we regularly prepend series numbers to box numbers when we have multiple series that restart with box 1 (e.g., Box I.1, Box II.1, etc).  That has worked for us when importing from spreadsheets.

I believe another option is to barcode boxes; AS will not combine top containers with different barcodes. So if you had Box 1 - BARCODE01010101 and Box 1 - BARCODE89898989, these would remain distinct. We don't barcode onsite boxes, so we haven't done this. 

Best,

Kevin

On Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 1:16 PM 'Krystal Rycroft' via Archivesspace_Users_Group <Archivesspac...@lyrasislists.org> wrote:

Hi ArchivesSpace users, I’m fairly new to ArchivesSpace, and I’m an institutional / corporate archivist working on importing archival object records from acquired companies. Each had their own individual rule sets, descriptive practices,

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[Tessa Wakefield]

Hi Krystal,

I'll echo Kevin a little bit! We also have dozens of box 1s, 2s, etc and had a doozy of a time sorting things out when we migrated into ArchivesSpace. Like Kevin, we try to make each unique. We chose to use the barcode field to do that. While we don't have actual barcodes / scanners, we created a standardized numbering system to use in the barcode field that is unique to each box. I think you could do it in bulk if you think of how to make them unique (like barcodes or how Kevin's crew did it) before you import, you can include that in the import spreadsheets. Otherwise, while a bit slower, manually also works perfectly fine!

Feel free to email me if you have any questions or if you want to see one of ours as an example!

Tessa

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[Krystal Rycroft]

Hi Tessa and Kevin,

 

Thank you for these suggestions! I’ve been experimenting with adding a collection number as a prefix to the box number in the indicator field, and so far so good.

 

I’m also experimenting with your suggestion to use the Barcode field too – that could be helpful as well. I’m glad to see that the Barcode field appears when browsing for Box numbers – I wasn’t sure if that would be visible.

 

Lots of great ideas, and I think I’m on my way to a solution. Thank you and thanks for everyone who responded to me offline too.

 

What a great community!

Krystal

 

Krystal Rycroft, MISt | Corporate Archivist | Corporate Communications

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From: 'Tessa Wakefield' via Archivesspace_Users_Group <Archivesspac...@lyrasislists.org>
Sent: April 25, 2025 2:15 PM
To: Krystal Rycroft <Krystal...@sunlife.com>
Cc: archivesspac...@lyrasislists.org
Subject: Re: [ArchivesSpace Users Group] Top Containers - multiple Box 1

 

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[Mendoza, David]

Hi Krystal,

We’re in a similar situation for a corporate archive.  We have several legacy companies all with different and similar numbering systems for top containers.  We treat each legacy company as a collection and use legacy company name abbreviations as prefixes for top container numbers to differentiate ,  SPxxxx or CIxxxx.

 

Not sure if it’s the best solution, but has worked so far.

David   

 

Bank of America Corporate Archives | 980.386.4627

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[Krystal Rycroft]

Hi David,

 

Thank you for your input. I’ve recently assigned collection numbers and name prefixes to our legacy companies, so I’m glad to hear another corporate archive has done the same! And using the information with Top Containers is a great idea to differentiate boxes. I’ll keep experimenting in my system with these tips.

 

Have a great weekend,

Krystal

 

Krystal Rycroft, MISt | Corporate Archivist | Corporate Communications

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From: Mendoza, David <david....@bofa.com>
Sent: April 25, 2025 3:27 PM
To: Krystal Rycroft <Krystal...@sunlife.com>; Tessa Wakefield <tessa.w...@uni.edu>
Cc: archivesspac...@lyrasislists.org
Subject: RE: [ArchivesSpace Users Group] Top Containers - multiple Box 1

 

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[Carole Prietto]

>> I’ve been experimenting with adding a collection number as a prefix to the box number in the indicator field, and so far so good.

This is what we do at Georgetown Law. A typical box number might be: LCA-07-12-001.01

LCA= Law Center Archives 

07-12-001 is the collection's classification number.  

Following the classification number, a period - what's after this is the box number (01 in this case) 

Our manuscripts collections are numbered similarly: MSS016.01 for Box 1 of Manuscript collection #16 

Carole Prietto (she/her)  |  Law Center Archivist

GEORGETOWN LAW  |  cap...@georgetown.edu

600 New Jersey Avenue, N.W.  |  Washington, D.C. 20001

Phone: 202.662.9149

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[Mendoza, David]

Hi All,

Hoping this is a simple solve that I just can’t wrap my mind around.  I recently created Top Container IDs when entering records under a specific resource.  When I search for those containers via Manage Top Containers and filter by Resource, they do not appear under that resource.  However, when widening my search by container profile, I can locate them.  When I view these Top Container records, I see that these Top Containers are indeed associated with the resource they were added under.  I’m on V3.5.1

 

Is it me?  Maybe a simple function I’m not performing?

Hope all that makes sense.

 

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks,

David

 

Bank of America Corporate Archives | 980.386.4627

 

 

[Sarit Hand]

Hi Krystal,

I will also echo using the barcode field. We only started using actual barcodes in 2023 for off site containers. I found using the barcode field best because it will not allow duplicates whereas the indicator does (as you may note).

To clean up or identify duplicate top container indicators, I did, like others, combine collection id, series number and any other id reference string to create a "unique" barcode. Then I could unlink and link to the top container in order to eliminate duplicates. For collections where box numbering start over for each series (ugh), and are not yet assigned a barcode, I use the combination method for now. I even have collections that are partially processed so some boxes from the newly processed stuff has the same number as boxes not yet reprocessed! That's not a pretty one. That is why I rely on the Barcode field but I still use the indictor, of course.

The downside of creating an indicator by combining ID data, is if there is ever a reason something is reprocessed, you will be in a bind.  Also, if for some reason you share a top container across collections or series, that too will raise issues or confusion. I find that has been an issues is some cases with file naming. So I like to try to stick with something random like a generic barcode numbering system.

Cheers

Sarit

[Joshua D. Shaw]

This sounds like it might be an indexer issue if the top containers are associated with archival objects (or the resource) - ie they show as linked instances. You can try resaving the top containers to trigger a reindex of the top container(s) and the associated linked objects. Or resave the resource.

I'd also look for errors in the logs in case the indexer is unhappy with something.

Joshua

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From: 'Mendoza, David' via Archivesspace_Users_Group <Archivesspac...@lyrasislists.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 8, 2025 2:35 PM
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Subject: [ArchivesSpace Users Group] Top Container Indicators and Resource Mapping

 

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