Archipelago 1.6.0 + 2.0.0 Release Announcement
Allison Sherrick
Hello everybody,
We are pleased to announce the Archipelago 1.6.0 Release today, hooray!
Alongside the primary Archipelago 1.6.0 Release, we are also pleased to announce the simultaneous release of Archipelago 2.0.0, which is being developed in tandem with the latest Drupal 11 integrated changes. Important to note: the 1.6.0 and 2.0.0 releases have feature parity for any new UI and API related features–you are not “missing out” on any important functionality with either version.
This release will be our team’s first dual-track release for two separate Archipelago versions–the primary 1.6.0 release running on (stable) Drupal 10, and the secondary 2.0.0 release running on the (less stable) Drupal 11. There are large divergences between Drupal 10 and Drupal 11, and many specialized changes were needed for Archipelago’s code where it touched upon Drupal 11-related services and impacted modules. Moving forward, we will continue to provide development support for both release tracks until Drupal 10 is officially sunset.
For members of the Archipelago community with repositories already humming along steadily on 1.x releases, we strongly recommend moving forward with the Archipelago 1.6.0 release updates at this time.
If you are new to Archipelago (welcome, happy to have you here!), we recommend starting your journey with the local deployment version of Archipelago 2.0.0.
Our team’s top highlights for this dual Archipelago release include:
Incorporation of key Drupal 10 (1.6.0) and 11 (2.0.0) bug fixes and updates
DataCite integration : includes UI interfaces, DataCite Schema V4 compliance, stable reporting, test and production environment fully integrated into the Fragaria Module and RAW JSON (AMI Set) workflows.
Customizable Audio/Video Formatters : now fully customizable (anything built by an admin user via plain HTML/templates) interfaces, including Wavesurfer (wave form interactive visualization) integration. This extends, via smart logic, the browser native Audio/Video Players and allows complex mixed displays (e.g. Oral History, Album playlists, etc.) to be built by repository owners. For 1.6.0, this will also allow any IIIF Manifest to be used as source, allowing us to offer our own Time based Media viewer (*in addition to the Mirador, IAB, and Universal Viewers we already include)
Strawberry Shortcake module (local deployments only): adds a UI driven/interactive ML clustering interface to allow Centroids and Medoids to be calculated and used for querying, also extends our “Query logic” to allow very large multidimensional Vectors to be “routed” as similarity search, direct input, into the fitting ML models.
Breadcrumbs for Metadata Display templates
Open API improvements, new resumption token system, and fully JSON output compliant
Multiple bug fixes and Date Range faceting/search improvements, including accurate BCE data calculations.
New 2026 & Beyond Archipelago Roadmap: https://github.com/esmero/archipelago-deployment/issues/291
New 1.6.0 documentation branch and multiple new and updated guides
You can find instructions for taking the latest Archipelago 1.6.0 release for a local test drive here:
https://docs.archipelago.nyc/1.6.0/archipelago-deployment-readme/
And the Archipelago 2.0.0 local deployment here:
https://github.com/esmero/archipelago-deployment/tree/2.0.0
You can find instructions for Archipelago Deployment 1.6.0 Live here:
https://docs.archipelago.nyc/1.6.0/archipelago-deployment-live-readme/
And Archipelago Deployment Live 2.0.0 here:
https://github.com/esmero/archipelago-deployment-live/tree/2.0.0
Archipelago Community End of Year Highlights
Across only the first 17 Archipelagos listed on our ‘In the Wild’ page under the section covering instances that Diego and I are privileged to manage directly or support as the METRO Digital Services Team alongside our institutional partners:
Total Top-Level Digital Objects: 857,280
Total Digital Objects including all subcomponents (pages, transcripts, mixed media/compound items): 4,735,800
Total Unique Lines of Twig Code in Metadata Display Templates: ~5,600
Total Custom Configuration Yaml File Differentiations (top file level, not reflective of line-level differences): ~4,225
Total Custom Solr Fields, Facets, Blocks, and Theme Components: ~2,000
Across all of the Archipelagos listed on our ‘In the Wild’ page, we are humbled to share that there are now over 8+ million total Digital Objects including all subcomponents (pages, transcripts, mixed media/compound items) held in these repositories.
Please take a moment to review a few exemplary resources found in Archipelago repositories:
San Diego State University’s “Surfing and Skateboarding History Collection”
Brooklyn Public Library’s “Borrowed and Banned Podcast Series”
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s “COVID19 en México: Del acopio a la difusión de colecciones digitales”
We would like to close out this release announcement by saying a big thank you to our Archipelago community members and friends–for your thoughtful feedback about Archipelago’s functionality, for your valuable digital collections work that continues to enrich our shared world, and for spending your time and energy with us over this past year. We are looking forward to working more with you in 2026 and hope you all have a wonderful rest of your 2025!
Warm regards,
Allison & Diego
Allison Sherrick
Digital Projects and Services Manager
Metropolitan New York Library Council
metro.org