Linking accessions and archival descriptions via csv/command-line import

[ty...@lre-tech.com]

Hi all,

I appreciate the help that has been provided to me so far.  I have stumbled upon another point of confusion and would greatly appreciate some help and input from you wonderful ICA-AtoM Users.

Background:
Within the Atom interface, once can create an accession and under "Archival description area" there is field where one can input a linked archival description which seems to search existing descriptions in the format Level, space, identifier, space, title proper.  Also, after creating an accession, one can click a box to be prompted to create an Archival description.  Either of these paths also creates an "Accession area" within the archival description.

The problem:
When using the up-to-date CSV templates, with particular reference to the accessions CSV template, there seems to be no field that can link an accession to an existing archival description, or link an archival description to an existing accession.  This seems to be odd, since this behaviour can be achieved easily when manually managing a single record using the web interface.

So here is my specific question:

• Is there a way to link accessions and archival descriptions via CSV import fields?  So that the archival description has a linked "Accession area" to the proper accession and the accession has a linked "Archival description" area to the proper archival description?
  

I am using RAD specifications for archival descriptions and the most up-to-date version of Atom.  I am hoping my issue stems from missing the function of an obvious field or a field is missing from the CSV template but achieves the proper function. The only related thread on this group seems to be this one which seems to be a separate issue relating to a web interface error.

Thank you all,

Tyler

[ty...@lre-tech.com]

I should add that I have seen this:

When importing information objects, you can specify an associated accession using the "accessionNumber" column. After importing your information objects you can then run the accession import tool to import details about each accession from a CSV file.

The point of confusion is that specifying an accessionNumber for an accession does not link it to a RAD information object, nor do any other fields in the accession CSV template.  Do you just add "accessionNumber" as an extra column in the CSV template?  Unless I am missing a fundamental concept, such as the accessionNumber being identical to an information object field to create the link.

Tyler Pantella

[Hutchinson, Tim]

Hi Tyler,

 

As you’ve suggested, you should be able to add an “accessionNumber” column to the RAD CSV template. It appears this only works for new accessions (at least those that haven’t been imported/created already). The information object CSV import will create placeholder records for each accession listed in that column. You will then be able to import the full accession records. I don’t believe you can do this linking from the other direction (via the accessions CSV).

 

Tim

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[Anne-Marie]

We are preparing to do an import of legacy accession data that we have structured as a CSV and would like to link these to existing descriptions. As we will be upgrading to 2.0 in the coming months, I am trying to plan the order of the various data imports to best leverage the system. 

Do I understand from Tim's previous post that if we already have descriptions then there is no way to automatically generate links to the accessions data? Or is it possible to import the accessions data before porting over the existing description data from our 1.3 instance and then somehow add this data to generate the relationships upon import?

Thanks, as always,

Anne-Marie H. Viola

Metadata & Cataloguing Specialist,

Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA)

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection

1703 32nd Street, NW Washington, DC 20007

http://www.doaks.org/library-archives/icfa

violaa[at]doaks.org

On Monday, February 24, 2014 3:50:08 PM UTC-5, Tim Hutchinson wrote:

Hi Tyler,

 

As you’ve suggested, you should be able to add an “accessionNumber” column to the RAD CSV template. It appears this only works for new accessions (at least those that haven’t been imported/created already). The information object CSV import will create placeholder records for each accession listed in that column. You will then be able to import the full accession records. I don’t believe you can do this linking from the other direction (via the accessions CSV).

 

Tim

 

From: ica-ato...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ica-ato...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of ty...@lre-tech.com
Sent: February-24-14 12:40 PM
To: ica-ato...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [ica-atom-users] Re: Linking accessions and archival descriptions via csv/command-line import

 

I should add that I have seen this:

When importing information objects, you can specify an associated accession using the "accessionNumber" column. After importing your information objects you can then run the accession import tool to import details about each accession from a CSV file.

The point of confusion is that specifying an accessionNumber for an accession does not link it to a RAD information object, nor do any other fields in the accession CSV template.  Do you just add "accessionNumber" as an extra column in the CSV template?  Unless I am missing a fundamental concept, such as the accessionNumber being identical to an information object field to create the link.

Tyler Pantella

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[Dan Gillean]

Hi Anne-Marie,

You are correct, as far as I can determine - I don't believe there is currently a way to link existing descriptions to newly imported legacy accessions, unless you have imported your descriptions and added the related accession number to an accessionNumber column in a CSV prior to import. Then you can import the accessions to populate them with the details.

This makes a problem for previously imported descriptions, or AtoM-born descriptions that precede the import of legacy accession data.

I have thought that it should be possible to add a qubitParentSlug column to the Accessions CSV template - ideally this would allow for the linking of existing descriptions with newly imported accessions data. I have filed a feature request for this issue here: https://projects.artefactual.com/issues/6752

Though I have tentatively associated this with a 2.2 release, please note that it is not sponsored at this time, and I can't guarantee that Artefactual will be able to include it in an upcoming release without development support. I know that you can anticipate my standard invitation to contact me off-list if anyone reading this is interested in sponsoring this feature request, so I will leave it at that - I also invite any users with access to developers to consider sending us a pull request if you happen to tackle this feature for your own use.

Cheers,

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Product Manager / Systems Analyst,
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

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[Jen Whitney]

Hi, Dan & Anne-Marie,

This is useful for us, too. I've opened a pull request that adds support for a qubitParentSlug column to link accession records to existing descriptions.

Jen Whitney

Systems librarian

Carleton University

Ottawa ON

[Dan Gillean]

Jen, thank you so much!

I have updated the relevant issue with a request for one of our developers to review and merge the pull request, so I can test. If all goes well, we will include this fix in our 2.1 release.

Once again, a warm thank you to everyone on this thread for your input, and especially to Jen for contributing code back to the project that will no doubt benefit many of our community members.

Cheers,

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Product Manager / Systems Analyst,
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

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