Creating Top Containers in bulk for new accessions

Emily Davis

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Jan 5, 2023, 12:02:25 PMJan 5

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Hello,

We will be moving our collections next month. It looks like there is no way to create top containers in bulk, so I've been experimenting with the best way to create top containers quickly for unprocessed collections (that way, we can log the new locations during the move.)

Every time I create a bunch of top containers in an accession record and then go into 'Manage Top Containers' and search for them, (to log the container profiles and location in bulk,) the boxes do not show up.

To get them to show up, I have to go into each box record again, open it, and save it. Then it appears in the 'Manage Top Containers' search.

Any thoughts on what might be happening and how I can resolve this?

We have to create over 1,000 top containers in the next few weeks. Any way we can do this more efficiently would be great to know!

Many thanks,

Emily

Chatnik, Corinne

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Jan 5, 2023, 12:45:57 PMJan 5

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Hi,

It sounds like there is an error in your indexer or database that's affecting the indexer. Like a missing required value or something. If you can get to your log files that would help identify where. To create bulk containers I have used this plugin from Bentley Library: https://github.com/bentley-historical-library/bulk_create_containers

or through the api: https://github.com/yalemssa/api_environment_setup

Corinne

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Corinne Chatnik

Digital Collections and Preservation Librarian

Schaffer Library, Union College

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Emily Davis

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Jan 5, 2023, 1:17:32 PMJan 5

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Hi Corinne,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try to look into that. I also noticed that we have not updated in a while, so I figured I'd start there.

And thanks for the link to the Bently plugin, I failed to see this when I was looking around yesterday!

Emily

Hutchinson, Tim

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Jan 27, 2023, 11:16:16 AMJan 27

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Hello,

I came across this thread with interest, since we’re planning a similar collection move, in parallel with a migration to ArchivesSpace. I was glad to learn about the existence of the Bentley plugin. Could someone confirm if this plugin is stable on 3.x? I’m assuming so since version 3 has been out for a while, but we only recently upgraded to 3.x on our test box so wanted to check.

Thanks

Tim

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Emily Davis

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Jan 27, 2023, 11:51:09 AMJan 27

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Hi Tim,

I made the original posting...

We migrated to 3.3.1 and have been unable to get the Bently bulk top container plug-in to work. We're currently trying to go through the API but are finding that documentation also to be outdated. I can let you know the outcome of our work, if you're interested.

Emily

Emily Davis

AV & Collections Archivist | University Archives

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries

she/her/hers

Hutchinson, Tim

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Jan 27, 2023, 12:58:34 PMJan 27

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Thanks Emily, good to know. I’d certainly appreciate any updates. I’m also working with the API and would be happy to share as I get further, although our timeline may be longer than yours. For the main collection move, we’re planning to use the API since we’re migrating from a system that just records shelf ranges, so there would be a lot of manual data entry. The plugin seemed promising for new data entry.

Others will be in a better position to advise if there are key changes in the API for 3.x, but I’ve found that the API documentation is spotty in parts and sometimes needs experimentation. I got some good advice early on to fully populate a sample record, and then grab a json file to see the details. I’ve also occasionally found the schema documentation to be useful - https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/tree/master/common/schemas. My main import script, developed with 1.x, is still working – I did need to adjust a few things but I think that mostly related to new required fields in accession and/or resource records.

Tim

Tim Hutchinson
University Archives and Special Collections

University of Saskatchewan

University Library

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