Physical storage

[Linda Justo]

Hello, I am relatively new to AtoM and I am struggling with how to indicate physical information within an archival description.   

I am experimenting with the Physical storage functionality in AtoM but I am also experimenting with using the notes field and alternative identifier field.  The aim is to not produce our own finding aids, which traditionally give box, folder and item details and use generated finding aids from within AtoM if necessary. 

Any ideas from other users of if they are using the Physical storage functionality within Atom.  And also what others are doing if they aren't linking physical storage in AtoM.

Thanks in advance,

Linda

Linda Justo

Librarian/Archivist, Information Systems and Resource Services

 The University of Queensland

Brisbane Qld 4072 Australia

[Joey Denton]

Hi Linda,

I've been using the physical storage feature for a while, so thought I'd show you how we use it. I've attached some screenshots for reference. 

So first of all, the main type of storage we use in that module is the box level. In the first photo ('physical storage view' pic) you can see the first box in our photograph collection and the record group reference #s found within it when viewing it from the 'Physical Storage' page. When you click on the box, it will have a link to each record group included ('box view' pic). And you could make it more granular if you want to see where each folder or item is, but I would stick to one collection level for each type of box, i.e. not linking both folders and items within the same box. 

Once you've linked your description to a box, it will show up on the description page at the level you've linked it at ('record group view' pic). If you have multiple boxes for a collection, you can run a report and it will show every box that is linked (reports > physical storage locations > html --- see 'report view' pic). And if you generate a finding aid, it will list the storage location at the level you've linked it ('finding aid view' pic).

I actually don't use the finding aid feature too much, because the website itself has a lot of the information you would need in a finding aid. And once you start linking descriptions, it is easy to manage where your materials are using the physical storage feature. The main thing to be careful of is that you have to manually update the location whenever you are taking out boxes.

I hope this helps!

Joey

[Dan Gillean]

Thanks for sharing, Joey! Hopefully other users might also share how they are using the storage module. 

Linda, just a few other thoughts to share: 

First, if you are curious to see other related threads, everything in the forum from the last few years related to physical storage in AtoM can be browsed here, using the tag: 

• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!tags/ica-atom-users/physical-storage  
  

AtoM's physical storage module does not currently have the ability to organize containers and locations hierarchically (for example, to nest a folder in a box, on a shelf, in a range, in a specific building, etc.). Because of this, we generally recommend that you use unique names for storage containers - perhaps even incorporating your description reference code(s) into the container, to make it easier to find the correct container in the future when using drop-downs and autocomplete fields. 

This thread, for example, discusses this somewhat, as well as some alternatives that others are using: 

• https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ica-atom-users/E-NWLH15bUA/x05g0T7WEAAJ
  
• See also: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ica-atom-users/fZyu_z4H1IM/mhmihSNYCAAJ

Finally, a note on physical storage and the generated finding aids in AtoM: 

Some users consider sharing physical storage location a security risk. Consequently we have the option to hide physical storage information via the Visible elements module. See: 

• https://www.accesstomemory.org/docs/latest/user-manual/administer/visible-elements/#hide-or-show-physical-storage  
  

If you hide physical storage in Visible elements, AND you have set your finding aids to "Generate as a public user" (setting described here), then AtoM will exclude the storage information from the finding aid generated. 

Cheers, 

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

@accesstomemory

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