Adding child levels to an existing archival description

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Sandy Ayer

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May 24, 2016, 6:00:41 PM5/24/16
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Colleagues,


I’m making my first attempt to create a file-level archival description. I’ve already created a complete fonds level description. I'm trying to create child-level descriptions for two series and their constituent files: TEXTUAL RECORDS (7 files) and PHOTOGRAPHS (2 photos).


I went to “edit” and then navigated to “title and statement of responsibility” and then:

  • Changed “level of description from “fonds” to “file”
  • Scrolled down to “Add new child levels”
  • Left the “Identifier” field blank, since I couldn’t figure out whether “enter an unambiguous code used to uniquely identify the item” was referring to the identifier used in the authority record or whether this was the place to enter box number and file number
  • Entered the series titles as new series child levels and the constituent files as files (I put the file number before the file, as in “1. Journalism and Writing” and put the inclusive dates in the “date” box, e.g., 1957-[200-?]
  • In the “Photographs” series I treated the photos as files and numbered them as I did the files

I pressed “save” and none of the information, except the  change from “fonds” to “file”, showed up in the archival description.


Could you please let me know what I’m doing wrong?


Thanks


Sandy Ayer


Director of Library Services and Archivist

Ambrose University

Dan Gillean

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May 24, 2016, 8:47:41 PM5/24/16
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Hi Sandy,

The "Add new child levels" widget is a sort of shortcut for adding child descriptions while you are doing data entry for the actual parent record. It allows you to add basic skeleton information about those lower levels without leaving the parent (e.g. fonds) edit page - but in most cases you'll want to navigate to these records after saving, using the treeview in the left hand sidebar, to supplement them further.

To add full child records to an existing fonds or collection, you'll want to:
  • Navigate to the target fonds/collection
  • In the button block at the bottom of the record, click the "Add new" button
  • AtoM will open a new blank template where you can add the information for your first child record.
  • Click save when you are done
  • Repeat the process as necessary

Be aware that when you click "Add new" it will create a new child record of whatever record you are currently looking at. So if you create a child series from a fonds and then save, remember to use the treeview to navigate back to the parent fonds before clicking Add new again - otherwise you'll be creating a new child of the series!

Some more information in our documentation - both the on-the-fly method via the Add new child levels widget, and adding full descriptions with the Add new button are covered in different subsections here:

Hope that helps!


Cheers,


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

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Sandy Ayer

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May 24, 2016, 9:55:34 PM5/24/16
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Hi Dan,

Thanks for this additional info. Actually, when I signed out of the description I was working on I did get a pop-up showing the first series and associated files.

Would you mind letting me know what goes in the "identifier" field of the child record?

Thanks.

Sandy

H. D. Sandy Ayer
115 Strandell Cresc. SW
Calgary, AB 
T3H 1K8


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Dan Gillean

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May 25, 2016, 12:25:48 AM5/25/16
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Hi Sandy,

Again, this will depend on local practice at your institution, to a certain degree. AtoM does have the ability to generate a unique reference code, created by combining the country and repository code, and then the identifiers at successive levels - this would allow a researcher to supply a reference code that is unique for each item in a shared portal site, even if each individual identifier is not. Here's how it works:



Read more here: https://www.accesstomemory.org/en/docs/2.2/user-manual/administer/settings/#inherit-reference-code-information-object

Taking a quick look at Alberta on Record, for example, I can see that they have this setting turned on.

Notice that in the example image above, the files were just numbered sequentially. If this approach works for you, it could work. You might also try to indicate level somehow in the identifier you choose - S001, S002, S003 for series, F001, F002, F003 for files, etc.

At UBC's Rare Books and special collections, they would often not apply an identifier at the series level, and use the identifier at lower levels to indicate box and folder  - so in this example, the fonds was given the designation of RBSC-ARC-1394, the series was left unnumbered, and this particular intellectual "file" description spanned folders 01 and 02 in box 437. This helped RBSC staff with retrieval when researchers would request to see the material.

AtoM will not force you to apply an identifier - in fact, having been adapted from the cataloguing standard AACR2, I don't believe that the Canadian RAD standard even includes a field for identifiers - though we have included such a field in the AtoM RAD template because they are generally used for unique identification in archival contexts, and RAD is undergoing review by the CCA at the moment.

If you'd like to take a look at how other users have managed their identifiers, we have a list of example AtoM users whose sites you can explore on our wiki, here:

Cheers,


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

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Sandy Ayer

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May 25, 2016, 1:02:10 PM5/25/16
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Hi Dan,

Thanks for this thorough response, which leads me to conclude that I'm working at a far less complex level than the larger repositories. I think I'll skip identifiers altogether, except for the Authority record, which seems to require one.

For the moment I would simply like to find out the procedure for generating, in the archival description, a file list that includes box number and file number. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks.

Sandy

H. D. Sandy Ayer
115 Strandell Cresc. SW
Calgary, AB 
T3H 1K8


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Dan Gillean

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May 25, 2016, 2:10:05 PM5/25/16
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Hi Sandy,

In AtoM 2.2, you have a couple options - both of course assume that you've already added this information to your AtoM system.

The first is the reports module. In the right-hand menu on your archival description, click the reports icon. You'll be given the option to generate either a file-level or an item-level report, depending on what levels are available. Unfortunately, these reports are exclusive - you can't currently generate a file AND item report, so you might want to generate both. There's also a physical storage locations report, if you have added physical storage information to your descriptions.

These reports are being produced in printer-friendly HTML on request - but this means that for large hierarchies, they can sometimes time out. Fortunately, in AtoM 2.4 we will be moving all of these reports to the job scheduler - you'll be able to generate them in either CSV format, or in HTML that you can download and view locally in your browser.

Here's the documentation on the reports module:

The next option would be to generate a full finding aid from your description. This can be configured a number of different ways (PDF or RTF for formats, a shorter inventory summary for lower levels or full descriptions for all levels), but these settings are configured by an Administrator, and I'm not sure how they would be configured in your portal site - talk to the site administrator to find out. In the right-hand context menu (e.g. the side menu), below the reports button, you should see an option to generate a finding aid. It will be executed asynchronously, so you'll have to refresh your browser after a while to see if it's done and the download link is available - or you can go to Manage > Jobs for more information. 

Here's the documentation for the finding aid generation:

In the upcoming 2.3 release, an administrator can also configure an option to make an HTML table-based inventory list from lower-level descriptions. More information on this new functionality here:

Regards,


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

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Sandy Ayer

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May 26, 2016, 6:05:16 PM5/26/16
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Hi Dan,

Thanks for this helpful information and for your usual thorough response.

However, I see that I'll need to reframe my question, which, I think, is: a) How do I add information on box number and folder/file number to my AtoM system? and b) Will I need to use leading zeros when doing so, in order to get any finding aid reports that I might want to do to generate properly?

Also, can this information be entered when one is creating series and file-level child records in the archival description (which I'm assuming is the best way to enter this sort of data)?

Thanks for your patience.

Sandy 

H. D. Sandy Ayer
115 Strandell Cresc. SW
Calgary, AB 
T3H 1K8


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Dan Gillean

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May 26, 2016, 6:34:52 PM5/26/16
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Hi Sandy,

AtoM's physical storage module, for adding locations data such as box and folder numbers, is pretty limited at the moment. You'll have to add the information separately after creating the description. In the "More" menu (found in the button block at the bottom of the archival description page), you'll find a link to add physical storage information. Details on the physical storage module are found here:

Cheers,


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

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Sandy Ayer

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May 26, 2016, 10:32:19 PM5/26/16
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Hi Dan,

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Sandy


H. D. Sandy Ayer
115 Strandell Cresc. SW
Calgary, AB 
T3H 1K8


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