Browse by information object in AtoM 2.0

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Creighton Barrett

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Oct 24, 2013, 1:35:05 PM10/24/13
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Hi folks,

We've managed to upgrade to 2.0 and import 200+ finding aids (50,000+ information objects) via command line. I think our developer had some trouble pulling the fix from the development trunk but he was able to replicate it. The XML files went in as draft even though the default was set to published but I've noticed the browser interface is much more responsive and was able to manually change the status for a large finding aid without the browser timing out, so that's a good thing. We're looking further into the issue Tim filed (thanks again!) but are also exploring backend solutions...

My question is about the browse by information object functionality. In 1.x, when you browse by finding aid, the display only shows the highest level of description. It seems in 2.0, it's showing all components. Can that be configured? We will end up with 200,000+ information objects and want to have our users start with the top-level when they are browsing. I see they can narrow results by level of description, but I'd be curious to hear if there is a way to switch the default display.

I'm really impressed! The quick search is really great.

Thanks,
Creighton

Jessica Bushey

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Oct 24, 2013, 1:49:05 PM10/24/13
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Creighton,

Thanks for the report, glad to hear things are going well.
From the GUI in AtoM 2.0 there isn't any ability for Admin to set the information object search results to collection/fonds level only. But perhaps one of our developers can jump into this conversation and explain if there is another approach to doing this.

Best,
Jessica

---
Jessica Bushey, MAS
ICA-AtoM Product Manager
Systems Analyst
jes...@artefactual.com

Artefactual Systems Inc.
www.artefactual.com

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Hutchinson, Tim

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Oct 24, 2013, 2:47:33 PM10/24/13
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Hi Creighton,

 

In terms of the browse, you could change the menu item for information objects to /informationobject/browse?levels=184

But this would not be highest level of description - just fonds level, so you may need something more customized if you have discrete items, collections, etc.

 

And as Jessica alludes to, you should probably also consider the search – would it be confusing to have different defaults? Since there is an option for searches limited to an institution, it should be possible (via code) to do something similar for level of description, with the same limitations I mentioned above.

 

Tim

 

Tim Hutchinson
Head, University Archives & Special Collections
University Library, University of Saskatchewan

Tel: (306) 966-6028  Fax: (306) 966-6040

Email: tim.hut...@usask.ca

Web: http://library.usask.ca/archives/

jrad...@artefactual.com

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Oct 24, 2013, 3:44:23 PM10/24/13
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Hi Creighton,

If you have access to the code you can show only the top level descriptions by adding the following line in '/apps/qubit/modules/informationobject/actions/browseAction.class.php' line 149:

$this->queryBool->addMust(new \Elastica\Query\Term(array('parentId' => QubitInformationObject::ROOT_ID)));

Hope that helps. 

Regards

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Creighton Barrett

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Oct 24, 2013, 4:08:59 PM10/24/13
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Thanks everyone for your quick assistance. We do have discrete items, series-level descriptions, etc., so I think we will take a look at José's suggestion and see if that does the trick. This isn't critical, I just thought it would be nice to label the informationObject browse link as "Finding Aids" but it doesn't make sense when the results page shows thousands of file-level descriptions. Maybe I should just let go of my obsession with finding aids... :D


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Dan Gillean

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Oct 30, 2013, 1:57:57 PM10/30/13
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Hi Creighton,

Thanks for sharing your use case and feedback on this with us.

This shift from 1.x to 2.x's behaviour is one of the results of our platform change to using Elasticsearch. Ultimately, as we have more time to develop it, we feel that ES can give us more options, and more flexible ones at that, but as time came down to the wire on our release target date, we were unable to fully realize everything we hope for the future of AtoM.

In regards to the browse and search of information objects in 2.x, we agree very much that there should be an easy way for users to view only top-level descriptions. Rather than completely restricting users from being able to browse all levels, however, we would rather see this as something that can best be addressed by future facet filter development we hope to include.

My vision for addressing this in the future would be to include, in the level of description facet, an option to filter by "Top-level descriptions" - this might include fonds, collections, series, items, etc. and would use the root_ID approach suggested in Radda's fix. Ideally, as we have time or gain support to develop the facet filters further, we envision allowing users the ability to select multiple options within a single facet as well, to tailor the results returned at a very granular level. We could make this filter be applied by default when a user lands on a browse page, but for power users, the option to remove the filter and view "All" records, or to tailor the Level of Description filters in different ways, is a feature we would like to maintain.

Creighton (and anyone else who would care to offer feedback), what do you think about this approach? It would return the default behaviour to that of 1.x, but would also allow users who want to be able to browse across all levels the option to do so.

Thoughts?



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


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Victoria Peters

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Oct 31, 2013, 7:22:55 AM10/31/13
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Hi Dan

 

This is a good discussion. I would like to share my thoughts based on Strathclyde’s experience.

 

I share Creighton’s concerns about a user having to scroll through thousands if not hundreds of thousands of levels. When browsing, I think it’s really important for the user to be able to get a good overview of holdings. If all the lower levels are displayed, you can’t really see the wood from the trees. Also, at Strathclyde I have been very careful to construct titles of top level descriptions in such a way that they display in a meaningful way when arranged in alphabetical order. If the lower levels are displayed as well, then the benefits of this are lost and there will be no meaningful or useful alphabetical order.

 

I’m struggling to think of an occasion when a user would want to browse all levels but I accept that it is possible they might want to so it would be good to offer this facility. However, I would prefer the default browse to be top level descriptions only so that new or inexperienced users can get an overview of holdings instantly without having to make a decision to limit what they’re looking at to top levels only. After all, will new users know what that means?  I do like your suggestion of allowing all sorts of extra options for power users and it’s great that the new platform will allow this but for the inexperienced user I think the default browse view should be the most helpful and straightforward.

 

I hope that’s useful. I’ll be interested to hear what others think.

 

Victoria

Creighton Barrett

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Oct 31, 2013, 11:06:02 AM10/31/13
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Hi Dan,

Thanks for the information about the shift in functionality. I have actually warmed up to the current browse display and we may not end up applying Radda's fix after all. Part of this is the approach we will take to showing our users the level of description filter and part of it is all of us just getting used to seeing our descriptive data collated in such a nice way, for the first time on the web. Our users are used to browsing itemized search/browse results and using facets (from things like google, journal databases, etc.), but I imagine we will always find new users that need orientation to the hierarchical organization of archival material.

I like your proposed solution. As you say, it provides for both browsing methods. Another option is to allow administrators to control how the browse results are displayed. The filter would be helpful, but administrators like Victoria may still want the browse information objects results to only show top-level descriptions. I don't know how complicated that would become if you implement the level of description facet you described.

Also, I think part of the issue is the details that are included in the search/browse results. In issue 5171 (https://projects.artefactual.com/issues/5171) I suggested that including a "Part of" note that links to the highest-level of description would help clarify the results. Breadcrumbs that contain links to Fonds > Series > Sub-series > File (like what is now shown on the file-level page view) would be a nice approach.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Creighton




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Hutchinson, Tim

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Oct 31, 2013, 11:46:01 AM10/31/13
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Hi Dan and all,

 

I definitely agree that a facet to limit to top-level descriptions would be useful. For browsing, that seems to be the most sensible default – making the default configurable would be even better. For search results, I think there is a stronger use case to show the results at the level at which terms appear. Restoring the “part of” line in the brief results also makes sense; further to Creighton’s comment in the issue he linked to, at lower levels it’s not always clear where a description fits, even if there is a scope and content note.

 

Tim

 

Tim Hutchinson
Head, University Archives & Special Collections
University Library, University of Saskatchewan

Tel: (306) 966-6028  Fax: (306) 966-6040

Email: tim.hut...@usask.ca

Web: http://library.usask.ca/archives/

 

Victoria Peters

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Oct 31, 2013, 12:02:34 PM10/31/13
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Hi

 

Yes, I agree completely about the need to display all levels in search results. It’s only browsing where I think the default to top levels is useful.

 

Victoria

Dan Gillean

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Oct 31, 2013, 12:52:23 PM10/31/13
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Hi all,

Thank you for your helpful input. The suggestion I put forward was based on discussion with the developers - implementing a top-level filter in the Levels of description facet, and making it the default for browse, is a much easier solution than adding further configurable settings to the Admin menu. I agree that both options would be ideal, but we would likely pursue this in stages, by introducing the facet filter first, and then in a future release, if the interest remains strong (or if someone wants to support its development) then we might be able to add a configuration setting to the Admin menu. This is apparently significantly more development work, so first seeing what kind of flexibility the facet filters provide when reconfigured (and hopefully developed further!) will offer a good opportunity to reassess the priority of such a feature.

Creighton, your point about the "Part of" element in the stub results record is astute; I agree completely it would help with context when viewing lower-level descriptions. A breadcrumb is also a great idea; we will explore both as we work on the redesign. We still intend to revisit and work on #5171, so there is still the opportunity to include this in an upcoming release - likely one of the major releases (2.1, 2.2, etc - right now we have the issue tentatively scheduled for 2.1).

Once again, many thanks for your insight - your feedback is essential to ensure that our efforts meet the use cases and needs of our users.

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


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Dan Gillean

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Dec 3, 2014, 5:53:33 PM12/3/14
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Hi there everyone,

I came across this old post recently and thought that I would post an update, for anyone finding this thread in the future.

We now have sponsored development underway to support the inclusion of both features discussed in this thread in our upcoming 2.2 release - a top-level description filter which will be engaged by default on browse pages, and the inclusion of hyperlinked "Part of" information for lower levels of description in the search/browse results.

The top-level description filter can be found on this issue ticket: https://projects.artefactual.com/issues/7570

The "Part of" field on search/browse results is related to this issue ticket: https://projects.artefactual.com/issues/7651

Together these should improve the usability of search and browse in AtoM. Thank you again to everyone on this thread who has helped to offer input! We don't have a firm release date scheduled yet for our 2.2 release, but we hope to finalize it in early 2015.

Regards,

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS

AtoM Product Manager / Systems Analyst,
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

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Creighton Barrett

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Dec 9, 2014, 8:04:35 AM12/9/14
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Thanks for this update, Dan. Really glad to see this development!

Cheers,
Creighton

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