Creating a hierarchy to facilitate browsing

[m.gor...@gmail.com]

Does AtoM allow for the creation of hierarchies that facilitate browsing our collections by researchers? 

I'm interested in something akin to the classifications in Archon and ArchivesSpace.  The classifications are simply categories that an archivist creates and then links collections to them, so that users can browse by topic or collecting area, etc.  At my institution, the first level in our classification hierarchy are the collecting areas: University Archives, Manuscripts, Political Papers, Photographs, and Rare Books.  Then these break down into sub-classifications.  In Manuscripts, they are topical.  In University Archives, you get a list of the parent record groups like RG 1 Board of Trustees.  In Political Papers, you find categories like Elected Officials or Grassroots Organizations.  This approach gives researchers an option to find our collections in addition to the search box, and it is cleaner than being lost in an alphabetical list ocean of archival descriptions.

Thanks,

Matt G

SIU Carbondale

[virtu...@yahoo.com.br]

Hi Matt,
My name is Carlos and im an long-term Atom user from Brazil.

You can do what you want by firstly observing level of description: collection/fonds >> Group >> Item, the later inside the former. Insert you classification term in the Title field. When browsing the description, hierarchy will be shown at left side or top, depending on your configuration settings.

Hierarchies can also be constructed with access point entries: taxonomy for subjects, places and functions, or for actors-actors relationship. You can do this manually (user interface) or in CSV sheets (actor-actor relationship) and SKOS files (taxonomies), imported via command line interface.

You can find more details on all these in the users manual.

Best regards,
Carlos

[Dan Gillean]

Hi Matt, 

Unfortunately, it looks like the ArchivesSpace sandbox doesn't have any sample data in it at present - I would be very curious to see how these classifications are expressed in the resulting EAD XML. 

AtoM doesn't have a concept that is directly applicable, but there are plenty of ways to help users access your content. 

First, by default when your browse descriptions, you are not seeing a soup of all levels from all collections/hierarchies. Instead, you are seeing only top-level descriptions. It seems to me like the access points could be used to create classifications as needed - on the search/browse pages, you can also facet or filter by subject/place/genre terms. 

Since all search/browse parameters are passed via URL and AtoM's menus are user-editable, you could also create new browse menu links that led to search result pages already filtered to the desired records. See: 

• https://www.accesstomemory.org/docs/latest/user-manual/administer/manage-menus/
  

So, in the subjects taxonomy for example, you could create a top-level term called "Collection classifications," and add child terms as needed. You could choose to only apply these terms at the collection level, and then you could create either a custom static page with links (or you could style them as buttons, like the Mills archive has done), or add them directly to your home page, or add links to them directly to one of the menus, like the main Browse menu or the Quick links menu. 

I have always liked the creative approach taken by the Beaton Institute, using subject terms and static pages together to create topical content guides as an alternative way of guiding user access. See for example: 

• https://beatoninstitute.com/projects
  

If you click through some of these projects, you will see the contents further organized by record type (i.e. genre/format) - for example: 

• https://beatoninstitute.com/ww1
  
• https://beatoninstitute.com/bns
  

Following one of these record type links, you can see that Beaton has essentially manually created term subdivisions (topic then genre) in the Subjects taxonomy: 

• https://beatoninstitute.com/black-nova-scotian-holdings-photographs
  

Many of these project landing pages also include further information providing context, and often a PDF project guide (like this one). 

I've also seen some single-repository institutions use the repository records as a way of organizing and separating content. Another point worth noting is that the levels of description are all user-editable terms in a taxonomy, so there's no reason you couldn't organize materials in a collection hierarchy using custom levels of description based on your classifications. Once again, you could easily create a link that is already faceted to those custom LODs to add to your site. 

AtoM is based on the requirements of the ICA's international standards, but has to contend with an international user base who all have very different local conventions, standards, and preferences. Consequently, we try to make the system flexible by design (since we can't accommodate all possible use cases out of the box) and permissive, rather than prescriptive in its implementation. Hopefully one of these suggestions might spark an idea as to how you can work within the existing functionality to achieve something along the lines of what you're looking for. 

Cheers, 

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

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[m.gor...@gmail.com]

Dan,

The classifications are unrelated to EAD XML.  When exporting EAD from Archon, the classifications are not included.  They are simply a public user interface view to enhance browse-ability.

I'll explore the options you presented.  The more I play with AtoM, the more I realize how much there is to consider.  It is tough because I want to decide on a tool that is best for us and our users, and then within that tool, decide what the best approach is to tackle the various challenges like classifications.  And to implement strategies that are reversible in case we go down a path we later regret.  I think what we're going for is something as Archon-like as possible, knowing that things won't be the same, but still trying to preserve some Archon features we really like, such as classifications.

Matt

[m.gor...@gmail.com]

I'm getting around to experimenting with these approaches.  Instead of using the Subjects taxonomy as you suggested, do we have the ability to create a brand new taxonomy for this type of classification purpose?  I'm logged in and don't see how to create a new taxonomy.  I want to avoid mixing the purpose of taxonomies.

Matt

[Dan Gillean]

Hi Matt, 

Unfortunately, there's no way to add new taxonomies on the fly - doing so requires development at present. 

One thing I've seen some people do as a workaround is to use the hierarchical arrangement just to create a set of pseudo sub-taxonomies. For example, in subjects you might have: 

• Classifications 
• University Archives
• Manuscripts
• Political Papers
• Elected Officials
• Grassroots Organizations
• Photographs
• Rare Books 
•  Topical terms
  
• [insert your usual subject terms here]

Another approach might be to empty out the Genres taxonomy or reorganize the terms there to suit your needs, and use that for classifications instead. 

A final approach, which is even more unconventional but could work, would be to make use of the RAD template's General Material Designation (GMD) field. It's fairly akin to the Genres taxonomy, but since it is specific to RAD, it has a separate taxonomy and the drop-down only shows up on the RAD edit template. However, you could conceivably do something like the following to make use of this field without development: 

• Customize the terms in the Material types taxonomy to suit your classification needs (this is the GMD taxonomy)
• When you are done editing a record, save it, then flip the template to RAD
• Add the corresponding classification using the GMD drop-down in the RAD edit template, set the template back to DACS or ISAD, and save

The GMD value will not be visible on the DACS or ISAD view pages. However, there is a search filter in the advanced search panel for this (which can be hidden via a setting if you are not using RAD, but for this use case, we want to leave it visible). Since all search variables are passed via URL you can customize AtoM's static pages, home page, and/or menus to make this information discoverable by users. For example: 

• You could create a static page with information on how to search by classification using Advanced search
• Check out some of the great static page help documentation some of our users have created via this section of our wiki
• Along these lines, you could create something akin to the Beaton examples I provided earlier in this thread
• You could create a section on your home page, or a separate custom static page, that has hyperlinks leading to each record type, e.g. Browse by classification: University Archives, Manuscripts, etc
• Again, the Mills Archive has an interesting way of doing this that you could borrow ideas from
• You could customize the main Browse menu, either so it has a link to a pre-canned search results page for each record type, or to a separate static page with pre-canned hyperlinks to each classification search
• You could use the Static pages custom menu option to make a custom menu available on the homepage and every description view page in the left context menu

These suggestions could be mixed and matched as needed. A custom theme could also override the default labels for GMD related fields to call them "Classifications," without having to modify AtoM's code directly (making upgrades harder). 

Regards, 

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 3:27 PM <m.gor...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm getting around to experimenting with these approaches.  Instead of using the Subjects taxonomy as you suggested, do we have the ability to create a brand new taxonomy for this type of classification purpose?  I'm logged in and don't see how to create a new taxonomy.  I want to avoid mixing the purpose of taxonomies.

Matt

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