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Archival Management Software - Council on Library and Information

1. For collection management I like the ability to produce reports about size of collections different types etc We re very pleased with the accessions module and have been using some of the user defined fields for our special needs For example we have needed a place where we could record material types in each accession broad material types whether visual papers digital items etc We have used one of the user defined fields to enter that information That will provide for us a way to use AT more as a processing planning tool There s a way to note whether each accession is high medium or low priority we re entering that information so we can go through and find all the high priority processing accessions in our collections and plan our processing from that We re hopeful that once we get that information entered into AT we can more fully use it as a processing planning tool Marking various material types will help people who are in charge of different media types paper digital visual etc We can find all of those collections that belong to us and that way we can use the accessions records Our legacy accessions database didn t have a way to transfer locations directly into AT locations area so we have to manually go in and enter all of the locations that we have noted but once we have done that we can use it as a locations guide so it s going to be and is already an excellent tool for us When you consider that we h
2. Weaknesses e There isn t a lot of documentation no help manuals The only weakness is that you don t get a help desk You can e mail OpenCollection and they get back to you Sometimes there are certain things on the interface I find a little bit clunky but I ve given a lot of feedback and changes are made quickly Whenever I find something that is awkward I ll e mail Support Since it is so customizable they can change it I haven t really used other archival software but I know that it has been very easy User Community Support e Tve found that the support has been very helpful It s been really easy to access people Strengths e Tm not someone with a lot of experience with these systems but I like the ability to link objects to people to places to events to exhibitions You can use it to tell stories and show relationships between things The end product lets people navigate through those relationships Archival Management Software 113 It s visually very strong there are a lot of visualization options It s online and customizable you don t need to download anything Any changes that I make can be see instantly by anyone else working on the project There are cool tools within the software For digital photos you can magnify photos at a high resolution so you can catalog it at a level that is really detailed There are details in old photos that you can t see throug
3. Archival Management Software 1 1 Introduction Whether called the elephant in the closet Mandel 2004 106 or a dirty little secret Tabb 2004 123 hidden collections are becoming recognized as a major problem for archives and special collections As the Council on Library and Information Resources CLIR stated in launching its Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives Program Libraries archives and cultural institutions hold millions of items that have never been adequately described These items are all but unknown to and unused by the scholars those organizations aim to serve 2008 Reducing archival backlogs and exposing once hidden collections will likely require that archives revamp their workflows but software can play a role in making archives more efficient and their collections more visible What technologies can help archives and special collections tackle their hidden collections and make them available to researchers This report explores archival management sys tems such as Archon Archivists Toolkit AT Cuadra STAR and Minisis M2A It also considers tools for creating and publishing encoded archival description EAD finding aids Archival management systems are a kind of software that typically provide integrated support for the archival workflow including appraisal accessioning description ar rangement publication of finding aids collection manage ment and preserva
4. institution Support institutions Interfaces with digital media repositories Archival Management Software 75 User Interface Web Publishing Fully Web based All user interactions with the system create view search update and delete information take place through the user s Web browser Users access HTML pages on the Web server clicking a button or link triggers a PHP script that sends a command to the database create read update delete and returns the output as HTML back to the user s browser Browse Yes Search Yes Zend Search Lucene search engine Advanced Search Yes Customizable Yes theming skinning Built in Help Yes Link to Images and Yes Other Files Easy Data Entry Yes Other Features Lisa Spiro 76 MINISIS M2A Home Page http www MINISISinc com index php page M2A Developer MINISIS Inc Canadian based with five regional offices Developer s Description The M2A Application was developed in conjunction with the Archives of Ontario as there was no existing archival management application that fit their specific needs The core feature of the M2A application is the Archives Descriptive Database ADD The ADD has five primary linked databases accessions descriptions lists name authorities plus a database that provides linkages between the authorities and descriptive components In addition there are mul
5. tinyurl com 6qrzqb BN http www pleade org en index html 3l http www cdlib org inside projects xtf 32 http asteria fivecolleges edu about html 53 http www marklogic com Lisa Spiro 24 different collections and archives can be defined thus enabling the creation of a multi institutional repository Users can search the whole database or particular collections The front end can be built on any platform and can be displayed in any way the archives want The University of Chicago took this approach because their UNCAP project is multi institutional and could be multiconsortial Such an architecture will give participants the flexibility to create unique interfaces for different collections and projects Chicago s code will be available to anyone who asks Archives that want to use the software will need MarkLogic but there is a free version for a limited number of CPUs that will be sufficient for small institutions II Archival Management Systems Archival management systems may be less flexible than EAD creation tools and getting legacy data into these systems can be challenging However they offer a number of features that may lead to greater efficiency and sustainability such as support for authority control reduced redundancy of data easy data entry interfaces the ability to analyze archival data through the generation of reports and Web publishing capa bilities Both open source and commercial archival mana
6. Advanced Search Yes Phrase based searching can exclude terms Search filter so that user does not have to scroll to find information Customizable Yes Nontechnical staff can modify Archon s themes and customize the interface if they know a little HTML and PHP Archon plans to undertake usability studies and develop new administrative and end user themes Built in Help Yes Use an integrated help system by clicking the help buttons Link to Images and Other Files Yes The digital library module is used to link to external digital objects and to directly upload digital objects and electronic records into the system Linked or uploaded objects can be associated with individual collections or any subordinate parts of a collection e g series items files that have been entered Hyperlinks between the digital object and the associated collection automatically appear in the public Website Easy Data Entry Yes Edit descriptive information directly from an enhanced public interface by clicking the edit icon Archon pencil image When a user begins typing a controlled subject term Archon filters a list of potential terms allowing the user to select the appropriate one Lisa Spiro 58 CALM FOR ARCHIVES Home Page http www ds co uk Developer DS is a member of the Axiell Library Group based in the United Kingdom Developer s Description Cal
7. License Open source Educational Community License v 1 0 Purchasing Cost Free Maintenance Cost N A User Support e Listserv User manual Web site FAO Wiki Developers are regarded as being responsive to user requests Training Available Yes System Requirements PC Operating System Windows XP Java 5 JRE or JDK also supports Java 1 6 CPU Pentium 4 2 4GHz or AMD 2400xp System Memory RAM 512MB Hard Disk 100MB free space Screen 1024x768 Mac Operating System Mac OS X 10 4 5 or higher Java 5JRE or JDK CPU G4 1 2Ghz System Memory RAM 512MB Hard Disk 100MB free space Screen 1024x768 Supported Database Backends Archival Management Software 49 MySQL 5 0 with the InnoDB storage engine MS SQL Server 2005 or higher Oracle 10g Technical Architecture e Java desktop client e Based on relational database model Supported database backends include MySQL 5 0 MS SQL Server 2005 or higher and Oracle 10g e Can work as a stand alone or networked application Backup Restore No Utility Maturity Current release Version 1 5 Now in Phase 2 Phase 2 release expected in February 2009 Beta testing of version 1 began in spring 2006 Hosting Available Not currently Demo Sandbox Yes http archiviststoolkit org support sandbox1 1 shtml available Sustainability Developed busine
8. Available at http www arl org resources pubs br br251 shtml Smart Christina July 5 2005 Choosing Open Source Solutions JISC e Learning Focus Available at http www elearning ac uk features oss Smith Yoshimura Karen and Diane Cellentani November 27 2007 RLG Programs Descriptive Metadata Practices Survey Results Data Supplement Dublin Ohio OCLC Programs and Research Available at http www oclc org programs publications reports 2007 04 pdf Steele Victoria 2008 Exposing Hidden Collections The UCLA Experience CRL News 69 6 Available at http www ala org ala mgrps divs acrl publications crln ews 2008 jun hiddencollections cfm Stefko Katherine 2007 Can You Get AT without IT Implementing the Toolkit at a Small College Repository Presented at panel Where are We AT A Status Report on the Archivists Toolkit SAA Annual Meeting 2007 Chicago Ill Aug 28 Sept 1 2007 Available at http smartech gatech edu handle 1853 16509 Archival Management Software 37 Stevens Amanda July 11 2008 Midterm Report on Software Review and Recommendations Project Council of Nova Scotia Archives Tabb Winston Fall 2004 Wherefore Are These Things Hid A Report of a Survey Undertaken by the ARL Special Collections Task Force RBM A Journal of Rare Books Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage 5 2 123 126 Available at http staging ala org ala mgrps di
9. Some even allow users to create deeds of gift and location labels track usage statistics and manage requests for materials and reference help Others focus more on archival description than on collection management Many do both Archives should determine what features are most essential to them while noting that new versions of software often add features that they may desire Reports statistics and project management Some software can enable institutions to run reports to for example track unprocessed collections or determine what is stored in a particular location How easy is it to create and print out such reports Through archival management software organizations may also be able to track statistics such as the size of various collections how many linear feet have been processed or deaccessioned over a year and the most frequently requested collections Such statistics can help archives determine how to set processing priorities and can be valuable in reporting to organizations such as ARL Indeed some software even allows institutions to mark accessions that are high priority for processing helping them manage hidden collections e Reliability and maturity 15 The University of Michigan is developing archival metrics http www si umich edu ArchivalMetrics Lisa Spiro 18 Some archives are shying away from software that is still in development such as Archivists Toolkit and Archon because there a
10. MARC al though that is promised for a future release One user commented It s so much easier than traditional col lection management systems that I ve worked with International Council on Archives Access to Memory ICA AtoM http www ica atom org ICA AToM is open source Web based archival de scription software that aims to make it easy for ar chives to provide online access to their archival hold ings adhere to ICA standards and support multiple collection types even multirepository implementa tions through flexible customizable software Ac cording to project lead Peter Van Garderen the impe tus behind ICA AToM was to expose hidden collections around the world by enabling small ar chives with limited resources to make available their collections online ICA AToM is designed to support aggregation of data from multiple institutions through OAL IETF Atom Publishing Protocol APP and pos sibly other mechanisms Developers are working on a pilot project with the Archives Association of British Columbia to build an aggregated union list portal ICA AToM aims to distinguish itself through its sup port for translation and internationalization basis in ICA standards such as ISAD G and ISAD H flexibility and customizability and ease of installation and use As a fully Web based application ICA AToM can be accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection and can be hosted at a minimal cost In the long term
11. MARC Yes with support from the company Imports Tab Yes Customers that have perpetual licenses can use STAR s toolkit to Delimited Files CSV filter and import such data For others and for most new customers Cuadra staff can import such data on the user s behalf In addition to exporting data in formats that have been predefined STAR includes tools for exporting data in tagged format and then filtering it into other formats STAR also includes tools for filtering and importing data from many industry standard formats e g delimited fixed column position tagged MARC This part of STAR s functionality is available to all customers that have purchased STAR under a perpetual license and to those that subscribe to the premium level of service for the hosted service Archival Management Software 65 Imports Digital Image Files Digital image files are linked to item level records not imported Cuadra links the files to the item level records as part of legacy data conversion projects From then on users themselves link the files as they enter item level records Import Accession Data Yes Customers that have perpetual licenses can use STAR s toolkit to filter and import such data For others and for most new customers Cuadra staff can import these data on the user s behalf Batch Import EAD Yes with support from company Batch Import MARC Yes with support from company Batch Import CSV
12. Restricted Yes Materials Manage Rights Yes Manage Loans and Yes Exhibits Deaccessioning Yes Reference Support Yes Provides support for reference requests Generate Reports Yes Track Repository Yes Statistics Resource Description Authority Control Yes for names places periods events subjects and class Controlled Vocabulary Yes Provides for both single and polyhierarchical subject thesaurus options and provision of the UNESCO or UKAT thesaurus if required by customer Compliance to Yes Supports EAD and ISAD G and is compliant with ISAAR Archival Standards CPF and NCA name authority guidelines Data Validation Yes Calm has a sophisticated date parser allowing storage and searching across a variety of date ranges e g a search for spring 1916 will retrieve record with date April 1916 or circa 1915 or Easter 1916 Templating Default Yes Has extensive field and template customization options Fields Support for Digital Yes Links to electronic data sources including images audio and Media video Internationalization Yes Backend database Unicode aware and the interface is translatable Flexibility of Data Calm has a flexible database structure fully supporting relational Archival Management Software 61 Model and hierarchical relationships Item level Description Yes Supports Hierarchical Cataloging Yes Flexib
13. Rights Yes Recording acquisition of use rights and licensing of use rights for objects Manage Loans and Exhibits Partial Can record loans in note field but fuller support planned for future release Deaccessioning Yes deaccessioning field Reference Support The system does not currently track how many times a record has been viewed It may be added in a future release however it is not difficult to do Generate Reports Yes The search engine s support for Boolean combination exclusion wildcards and field level limiting makes it possible to pose very specific queries suitable for reporting The result of any search in CollectiveAccess may be downloaded as a tab delimited file suitable for import into Microsoft Excel or similar applications for reporting purposes The list of report fields and their output order may be customized An improved version is coming in v0 6 Track Repository Statistics A project participant Seth van Hooland is working on the creating of metadata quality assessment tools for integration into CollectiveAccess as part of his Ph D work Some these tools at least will be integrated into Collective Access this fall Resource Description Authority Control CollectiveAccess has a full set of tools for managing and cataloguing with the following types of authority lists e Entities authority An authority list for individual people groups a
14. University of Calgary Charles Blair University of Chicago Leah Broaddus Southern Illinois University Carbondale Christopher Burcsik MINISIS Inc Chris Burns University of Vermont Christine de Catanzaro Georgia Institute of Technology Nicole Cho Coney Island History Project Michele Combs Syracuse University Cara Conklin Wingfield The Parrish Art Museum Amanda Focke Rice University Julie Grob University of Houston Geneva Henry Rice University Malcolm Howitt DS Limited Cees Huisman Adlib Information Systems BV Seth Kaufman CollectiveAccess Shelly Kelly University of Houston Clear Lake Anne Kling Cincinnati Historical Society Bill Landis Yale University Daniel Meyer University of Chicago Eric Milenkiewicz University of California Riverside Sammie Morris Purdue University Merilee Proffitt RLG Programs OCLC Chris Prom University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Archon Merv Richter Eloquent Systems Melissa Salazar New Mexico State Archives Dan Santamaria Princeton University Amy Schindler College of William and Mary Alice Schreyer University of Chicago Jennifer Silvers Oklahoma Historical Society Ilene Slavick Cuadra Associates Inc Amanda Stevens Council of Nova Scotia Archives Chuck Thomas Florida Center for Library Automation Melissa Torres Rice University Maxine Trost Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Peter Van Garderen Artefactual Systems ICA AToM Bruce Washburn OCLC Archi
15. Web based high resolution pan and zoom image viewer Images may be viewed at any resolution with continuous pan and zoom using CollectiveAccess s built in Archival Management Software 87 Tilepic viewer Mapping Any number of point or path georeferences may be associated with entries in the place authority The CollectiveAccess search interface can use this authority information to plot the locations of found objects using Google Maps Georeferences may be entered by hand or through the upload of KML KMZ format files exported from Google Earth or compatible software Time based cataloging Tools for time based cataloguing cataloguing of arbitrary segments of time based media such as video and audio allow a cataloguer to create and catalogue clips from an object using the same descriptive methods that are employed for any other type of object Labels may be printed for objects on pre made label forms Supported forms and labels are customizable and may include barcodes and images CollectiveAccess can generate a preview of what cataloguing applied to an object will look like on a printable sheet or in a public interface The preview can also serve as a useful summary of object information and a convenient means to launch searches for similar objects Support for user comments and user tagging planned for 9 15 2008 release Lisa Spiro 88 PAST PERFECT 4 Hom
16. a MARC record a shelf list and an online exhibit As one archivist remarked The ideal approach to minimal processing is that you touch everything only once Every time you touch it is more staff time Minaret Re discovery and VernonSystems Collection Integrated Digital Special Collections INDI currently under development at Brigham Young University is geared toward large archives or consortia and aims to support a distributed workflow for archival description and management The accessions and appraisal modules have already been released but as of August 2008 the future direction of the project was still being determined How to efficiently manage archives is beyond the scope of this report but Greene and Meissner 2005 and Prom 2007 take up the issue in detail 3 Many of these desired features jibe with Archivists Toolkit s AT recent survey of 171 users investigating what new features they most desire The most popular options included Search improvements average of 4 04 out of 5 with 5 being very important Enable batch editing global updating 4 31 Web publishing of AT data 4 2 Digital objects record revision which would include support for technical metadata visual metadata and independent digital objects 3 97 and a Use tracking module which would provide Support for tracking and reporting the use of a repository s collection 3 86 See AT User Group Survey R
17. active and people don t seem afraid to ask questions You get a variety of people from AT responding to it They seem to respond quickly and they all seem to be on the same page There s not a lot of confusing dialogues They seem to be able to handle both complex technical questions and simple questions The manual that they created works well for me The bug list that they put out is both helpful and confusing They have a quickie style of documenting all of these problems If you spend a few minutes you can see that a problem has come up before That sort of transparency about what the bugs are and how they are addressing them is a helpful feature They have been active about doing presentations both at national and regional level Without a huge budget they ve managed to do a lot of communication with interested users Weaknesses e Potential problems with upgrading to new version of AT after making customizations AT may be challenging for less technical staff to use As one archivist commented AT is great project I evaluated it and didn t think that it would be as easy for archivists I know with limited technical skills to get it running and use it It was a little too technical and required too much IT expertise to get the most mileage out of it e Lacks a public Web interface that would enable the public to search collections e May not work with existing workflows We do use the resource module for some stuff here but
18. automatically publishes archival descriptive information and digital archival objects to a user friendly Website With Archon there is no need to encode a finding aid input a catalog record or program a stylesheet Archon s powerful scripts will automatically make everything in the system searchable and browsable on your repository s Website Archon will simplify your workflow and save you time Once you ve input or edited information using some simple Web forms Archon automatically uploads the files publishes the Website and generates EAD and MARC records License Illinois Open Source License Purchasing Cost Free Maintenance Cost Free User Support Listserv User forums Web site Responsive developers User manual Training Proposal for Archon workshop submitted to SAA System Requirements User e A recent Web browser on any platform Admin e Blank MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server database A Web server of any type running PHP 5 0 or higher Technical Architecture Web based platform built using PHP 5 0 and SQL database as back end Backup Restore Export the entire database for backup purposes and restore data Utility from a backup files or using a user defined SQL script Maturity Archon 1 0 released August 2006 Archon 2 1 released April 2008 Archon 2 2 to be released July 2008 Update Hosting Available No but plans to study potential for h
19. box probably doesn t meet needs that well T think it really gives me the framework for description all I have to have is the data I don t have to worry about formatting or identifying my data because the software gives you so many options to fill in With Cuadra Star it s very flexible you have a lot of options and you can customize how you present your information because there are so many options Cuadra is flexible in accommodating different types of media That was its main selling point We deal with many types of materials and it allowed us the freedom to describe to those materials We have a staff interface and a Web session for the public There s a link on our Web site to our public catalog we can mount files of any type to records so we can upload pdfs of docs jpgs maps and we can also do MP3 wav for oral history etc Cuadra Star is appealing because you can upload files straight to the catalog and you don t have to have a finding aid it s all linked together Archival Management Software 107 Overall Assessment Tm happy that we ended up with Cuadra because I can get support when I need it they e mail you back almost immediately There are no stupid questions to them they provide very good support The search interface is almost like a Google search Especially as a small shop without much support Cuadra is a good choice In general I really like the system it works well and is rel
20. built with it were usually custom built so when moving to the Web based packaged application some of the personalization was lost Archival Management Software 111 Also some chose not to purchase the WebGENCAT Toolkit for the new product so they had to pay for custom tailoring to their new application The package product would not accommodate the old data structure Customer service is available by calling the hotline Those calls are usually resolved by the person answering the phone Voice messages are responded to in less than two hours The Eloquent Archives application is delivered with utilities to export data in a number of formats including ASCII tab delimited and Excel Eloquent consultants can configure a custom export to gather all related data out of the database and string the data fields out in any sequence the customer requests The customer then uses the powerful search tools to select the desired records and send them to the custom export utility The entire project usually does not exceed three to eight hours of the consultant s time after the customer approves the format Lisa Spiro 112 CollectiveAccess Summary To understand how archivists and museum specialists use CollectiveAccess CA formerly known as OpenCollection or OC I conducted a phone interviews with two users between May and June 2008 To encourage honesty I promised anonymity to the interviewees I tried to capture the interviewees remarks as accu
21. but I can t do much else If I have a patron and want to send them a container list I can t make an independent file Ideally I could select a collection export the finding aid into an autonomous file of some type such as EAD or HTML and distribute it independently of software There are a couple of pages where when you explode hierarchy out you have to touch every single folder The person who set up my archives didn t always do the hierarchy right so I have to figure out how to put stuff into the hierarchy T had to get used to how it looks T don t like the Web display very much I wish that I could play around with it some I can t do that troubleshooting because we don t have that freedom with them hosting our installation Strengths They provide support they take care of issues and host everything on their server The data is backed up at their location not here which is good in terms of hurricane preparedness Since we got it we ll spend a few weeks intensely working with it then spend time away from it It s not hard to come back to T love how you can search keywords in a Google way You can cut and paste an entire legacy finding aid Tf I have the time I could take a small collection scan everything and put it on the finding aid I could look at everything associated with the finding aid Lisa Spiro 106 Cuadra STAR was designed I think by arch
22. can be implemented to direct project activities if that is desired Record Condition Yes Manage Locations Yes Manage Restricted Yes Materials Manage Rights Yes Manage Loans and Yes Exhibits Deaccessioning Yes Reference Support Yes Connectivity to other modules such as client registration Archival Management Software 79 reproduction ordering and tracking and enquiries management Generate Reports Yes Two report generators are included in the MINISIS toolkit to allow both technical and nontechnical personnel to build reports Track Repository Yes Statistics Resource Description Authority Control Yes Controlled vocabulary Yes Clients can determine and set any vocabulary for fields validation tables and authorities at their will Compliance to Yes ISAD G RAD and EAD compliant Archival Standards Data Validation Yes Templating Default Yes Fields Support for Digital Yes Images database Multimedia management including digital Media images maps photographs videos with supporting text Internationalization Yes UTF 8 support supports translation of user interface support for Latin based languages Chinese and Arabic Flexibility of Data Yes For instance M2A has been designed to allow flexibility in the Model level of description that is applied The Archives of Ontario employs the series as the hig
23. currently employing applicable national standards the development of easy to use tools for file en coding and cataloging emerge as a priority These tools should be simple enough to be used by students or paraprofessionals working under the supervision of librarians or archivists Jones 2003 11 Greene and Meissner 2005 242 suggest that software can play a vital role in streamlining archival workflows by enabling archivists to describe the intellectual arrangement of a collection without investing the time to organize it physically In 2003 Carol Mandel observed that I also have been told again and again that we really don t have software for managing special collections We don t have the equivalent of your core bibliographic system that helps you bring things in and move them around efficiently and know what you are doing with them Mandel 2004 112 Fortunately powerful software for managing special collec tions and archives is emerging This report is more a sampling of leading archival management systems that offer English language user interfaces than a comprehensive examination of every potentially relevant application Of course software 1 Archival collection management and description software that go beyond the scope of this report include Andornot Archives Online ARGUS Questor Collections MOSAIC Plus CollectionSpace Embark Filemaker Pro HERA2 IDEA KE EMu Microsoft Access Mimsy xg Archival M
24. faster to programmatically convert text to EAD in broad strokes than to apply the copy and paste method required when using these editors Digital Publishing Group UC Berkeley Library n d Likewise the University of Chicago uses Web forms to create the front matter for finding aids archivists write inventories using Word and then a script is run to generate EAD Post processing is done using an XML editor such as Oxygen According to archivists at the University of Chicago such an approach provides the archi vist with a lot of flexibility Among the particular technologies used to create EAD are the following A XML text editors XML editors enable archivists to see the entire hierarchy of a 14 For more information about metadata description tools see Smith Yoshimura and Cellentani 2007 Lisa Spiro 20 finding aid and engage in the intellectual activity of marking up an archival collection As one archivist noted The act of writing a finding aid is something where you need to be able to view contents as you write series description Creating finding aids is not data entry but an intelligent process I think that encoding EAD helps you to write finding aids to understand the texture of a document However relying solely on XML editors to generate finding aids can be ineffi cient According to informal studies at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign a skilled worker took 20 hours t
25. find what they need License Commercial or SaaS Purchasing Cost 4 000 to 35 000 depending on modules used and size of holdings SaaS No purchase annual fee 2 700 to 9 500 Maintenance Cost 15 of list price not required with SaaS User Support Unlimited hotline support with annual maintenance fee Training Just in time with WebEx remote service System Requirements Any MS Windows Server for software any Internet browser for all client and admin functions Technical Architecture Entirely Web based Backup Restore Yes Easy recovery of deleted data Utility Maturity Smooth progression from DOS Windows and Web over 20 years Hosting Available Yes Demo Sandbox Yes Available Sustainability The software will run forever if you do not make significant changes to the server system software Data can be exported at any time Annual support fees are highly advisable but not mandatory Example Users e Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory e New Mexico State Records Centre and Archives Public Database University of New Brunswick Virginia Union University Public Database California State Archives Public Database Emporia State University Public Database AVID Center Public Database HTML Tree Index City of Toronto Archives Public Database Unique Features Track researchers and usage of collections Supports online research
26. found that many archives are using a variety of tools at various steps in their workflows so much so that their descriptive workflows would make good subjects for a Rube Goldberg cartoon Examples include the In tegrated Library System ILS for the creation of MARC re cords NoteTab and XMetaL for authoring finding aids Access for managing accessions Word for creating container lists and DynaWeb for serving up finding aids Prom 2008 27 See Appendix 1 of this paper for a more detailed description of the archival workflow In addition to the inefficiencies of using multiple systems to manage common data Prom et al 2007 158 159 notes a correlation between using EAD and other descriptive stan dards with larger backlogs and slower processing speeds EAD is an XML based standard for representing archival finding aids which describe archival collections Some insti tutions simply lack the ability to produce EAD finding aids or MARC catalog records As Prom et al suggest Until creating an on line finding aid and sharing it with appropriate content aggregators is as easy as using a word processor the archival profession is unlikely to significantly improve access to the totality of records and papers stored in a repository 2007 159 One of the ARL Task Force on Special Collections recommendations thus focuses on developing usable tools to describe and catalog archival collections Since not all institutions are
27. is planned although the link to the LC is more complicated Responding to the notion that the Archon code is a little messy Prom notes that we cleaned it up considerably and have heard comments that version 2 0 is very well structured Prom also advises that improvements to the accession manager and digital library public interface are coming with Version 2 2 Lisa Spiro 104 Cuadra STAR Archives Summary To understand how archivists use Cuadra STAR Archives I conducted phone interviews with three archivists between May and June 2008 To encourage honesty I promised anonymity to the interviewees I tried to capture the interviewees remarks as accurately as possible but I paraphrased and or condensed some comments Reasons for Selecting Cuadra When I was at SAA I saw Archivists Toolkit and Archon presentations I got excited about them I m a one man shop with one assistant a paraprofessional I started to look into it Archon but when we tried to install it our IT group refused They don t support it and wouldn t let us put anything on our computers that they couldn t support Then we went to the librarian here in charge of computers when he saw that it ran on MySQL he said no So I started looking at other options I m not very tech savvy We looked at ContentDM but it was really for digital collections less about managing administrative tasks and putting up finding aids I liked Archon because it allows
28. of a collection can a student do The students I ve used are mostly undergrads doing data entry for legacy finding aids They ve been able to pick up on that Most of them are fairly computer literate the bigger issue is not boring them and making sure they pay attention to detail What level of description you can train students to handle Seeing a tool like AT makes me wish I were starting an archives from scratch Getting all of the old data into AT or any system is a challenge We re doing it piecemeal Right now our main use is on the resources end descriptive information particularly for manuscripts at the collection level so that we can output to EAD and MARC We re fairly far behind with descriptive information so that s our big focus for this year The plan is to get our accessions process in place at the beginning of next year The trick is mapping our fields in our old database into the new database With the new version of AT they ve got user defined fields that will accept some of our oddball information purchase price appraisal value in house estimate of gift value etc But there are some data issues that are not straightforward that don t map well such as hard returns in descriptive fields which cut the data off so that it doesn t come across cleanly There will be a fair amount of data cleanup to do to get it in there Once the legacy data is in there I don t foresee any challenges to staff learning
29. our general workflow predates the Toolkit e There are still some bugs It s still not perfect so some data may not be saved properly Lisa Spiro 96 There s nothing about it that has driven me crazy The stuff that drives me crazy is that we have so much catching up to do and so few staff AT is a significant improvement as a tool that helps us to get stuff done I would like to see it link to user information User tracking in AT would be good for part of our collections but it s not a holistic solution to knowing what people are using and where we should put our resources But we have so much catching up to do that we re not ready to implement that any time soon anyway In terms of resource description I like it a good amount The complaint I hear from my staff I disagree with People say that it s too clunky it has too many fields and you have to separate data into fields to me that s good People have gotten used to working in a Word document without structured data AT imposes restrictions so it s more of a mind set of getting people used to thinking in a different way about what they re doing in describing archival material Some more collection management tools would be nice like doing stuff with processing priorities ranking research value current status of processing level of description There s currently no way to track that within AT It s hard for multiple people to work on descr
30. overall hierarchy Prom and Habing 2002 Illinois experimented with a schema that produces many DC Dublin Core metadata records from a single EAD file producing a collection level record that linked to the EAD finding aid as well as providing links to related parts of the collection Cole et al 2002 Archon is now experimenting with harvesting finding aids from a static directory via OAI PMH but nothing has been released yet Other archival management systems including CALM for Archives MINISIS M2A and Adlib Archive already provide support for OAI The FCLA is also exploring using the OAI PMH protocol to harvest EAD from registered provider sites Florida Center for Library Automation 2008 While Kathy Wisser was at the North Carolina Echo Project she developed a proof of concept distributed repository using the Internet Archive s Heretrix Web crawler and XTF as the indexer 2 http archives chadwyck com marketing aboutjsp 40 http www openarchives org 41 http www atomenabled org http oai grainger uiuc edu Lisa Spiro 32 3 Adopt an archival management system that supports federation ICA AToM is being designed to support harvesting and syndication via OAI and IETF Atom Publishing Protocol According to its Web site it can be set up as a multi repository union list accepting descrip tions from any number of contributing institutions Perhaps software such as ICA AToM could be adopt
31. patterns e The Qubit open information management toolkit developed by the ICA AtoM project and customized to make the ICA AtoM application fully Web based Backup Restore Yes Will be included in 1 2 Utility Maturity Currently under development projected to be available in summer 2009 ICA AToM 1 0 was released for beta testing in July 2008 Hosting Available Yes The core developers Artefactual Systems will offer hosting and other service providers will be encouraged to provide hosting services Demo Sandbox Yes A demo CD is available for download at http ica Available atom org democd An online demo copy is available at http ica atom org demo This will give anyone a login password and allow you to play with the software In addition the software will be available for download with a Web application installer In addition the software code is available for checkout at http ica atom org code html Sustainability ICA AToM is pursuing a multifaceted approach to sustainability including grant support membership and training workshops They have put forward a business model The ICA AtoM software will always be publicly available as free and open source software In order to raise funds to achieve the project s objectives and values the ICA AtoM Project will establish a business model that includes the following components 1 applying for grants and subsidies 2
32. records With systems such as Archon information can be published to the Web as soon as it is entered However some archives worry about the security and reliability of an entirely Web based system one archi vist noted her colleagues reluctance to put all of our eggs in one basket If the Internet connection goes down work stops which is also true of networked client server software A client based interface may offer greater con trol over data but institutions may need to pay a fee for Lisa Spiro 16 each computer on which the software is installed Licens ing models vary however so this is not always the case Support for publishing finding aids online versus generating EAD for export Many archives face difficulty not only in creating EAD files but also in publishing them online As one archivist remarked There s been a big hole people have been producing EAD for 10 years but it s still kind of difficult Some archival management systems address this problem by enabling archives to make available their finding aids on the Web Indeed a primary reason that Archon was developed was to facilitate publication of archival information online Once an archivist enters information into Archon it is automatically searchable and discoverable by Google although archives can choose to defer publication of records until they have been ap proved Likewise many commercial systems offer sup port for online access to t
33. release Batch Import EAD Not yet but due with next release Batch Import MARC Not yet but due with next release Batch Import CSV Not yet but due with next release Archival Management Software 83 Collection Management Features Appraisals Yes appraisal documentation Accessions Yes Tools for managing accession numbering tracking of object donor information and lot level cataloguing for use by collection registrars are included The lots facility provides these functions itis also possible to configure OC to create unique accession numbers according to a pattern and to enforce standards for accession numbers See http trac CollectiveAccess org wiki IDNumbers and http trac CollectiveAccess org wiki MultipartIDNumber Create Deeds of Gift Yes Printable form letters for registrarial functions are planned for September 15 2008 release Prioritize Processing No Order Track Donors Yes Project Management There are no formal project management features although this is something that has been discussed for 2009 There are quite a lot of de facto project management features in there already in the form of tagging of items Record Condition Yes custodial notes Manage Locations Yes Managing a hierarchy of storage locations and recording current and previous locations of objects Manage Restricted Materials Yes Manage
34. requests Google Map interface for search results No coding required for HTML EAD output Exported data delivered as automatic e mail attachment Lisa Spiro 68 automatically to user e Very modular for flexible pricing and configuration e Expands to include library museum and records management applications Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC No but exported EAD can be run through free publicly available EAD to MARC conversion software Exports EAD Yes Exports Dublin Core Yes Exports MODS P Eloquent XML Export Utility can be configured the DTD for MODS Exports METS P Eloquent XML Export Utility can be configured the DTD for METS Exports MADS P Eloquent XML Export Utility can be configured the DTD for MADS Batch Exports EAD Yes Batch Exports MARC P Export to EAD and use third party utility to convert to MARC Batch Export Tab Yes Delimited Files Imports EAD Yes Imports MARC Yes For library component of product from there integrated with archives or migrated to descriptive record structure Imports Tab Delimited Files CSV Yes Imports Digital Image Yes Attaches all formats of digital content to metadata Files Import Accession Data Yes Batch Import EAD Yes Batch Import MARC Yes For library component of product from there integrated with archives or migrated to descriptive record structure Batch Impor
35. so we would have someone to fix problems here We have had big problems working with Eloquent in getting what we needed adjusted to suit our needs The behind the scenes things like creating your own report or importing and exporting can be somewhat difficult We do have the Architect s module but that sort of work is still difficult to do We re unhappy with basic reports It seems that there is basic information that any archival institution would need when doing a search such as an accession number Some reports don t have the basic information you need For instance the collection lacks a file number which is basic information that any repository would need When we ask them to make changes it just doesn t happen for a long time There s been a lot of frustration We ve been trying to get them to export metadata for one of our collections so that we could put it into ContentDM In the old version of GenCat you could import and export Lisa Spiro 110 data easily We ve been trying to get this data out of Eloquent for about a year We can t do that in the Web version and having trouble getting a response from them There is no written documentation Some of the architectural stuff is difficult to do They really could use documentation There s not really a weakness that comes to mind When we typically have a problem we either e mail or telephone the help desk and they re ready to help us You
36. t have trained staff with a lack of technical expertise in a reasonable timeframe to produce what they did with the Toolkit e That s a hard question It s not too difficult to use if you just need someone to input data into it It s pretty simple to get students to point to input data But there needs to be someone in the department with a more thorough understanding of the program and how things work Some things will need to be adjusted after the stuff is input otherwise you will run into databases that are not very standardized The learning curve for all of the features of AT is pretty steep it took me a month or two to get comfortable with it Even now I m learning new things such as digital object description or linking internally I ve trained staff and two interns how to input into it They get information into AT then I change things Much stems from the hierarchical structure It s intuitive but confusing when setting things up I have issues where they try to add a file to a box In AT it s not clear if a file is in box or equal to box I have issues with structure and how AT displays it As for training I did a one time 2 hour session for staff Some picked it up quickly and jumped in others took more time to get comfortable with inputting stuff into AT e We have a lot of students working with data entry It s always a question of how much to give them In my mind the bigger question is how much organization
37. user interface is OK The frustration with it is that you can only enter things a line at a time If you ve got a long finding aid or if you ve got something where things repeat you have to cut and paste line by line which is tedious There must be some way to import it in larger chunks My staff say they find it frustrating that you can t see whole finding aid from the back end in EAD you can scroll up and down through whole finding aid but with Archon you have to drill down through series subseries box etc that s all you can see User Community One archivist characterized the user support as really good She typically e mails the developers whenever she has a question and they respond with enthusiasm Archon has had a succession of strong grad students who have provided user support Other archivists echoed the statement that the Archon developers are eager to help Archon does have a listserv but it often centered on people who are just adopting Archon and lack technical support at their home institutions Fairly active listserv with a few questions each week The developers are incredibly helpful There was an instance early on when I posted a question to Archon listserv In later release they added the requested feature They have very responsive developers When I have a question I have a really good response to it I know some of the people involved I have extra strong ties with those folks I e
38. y y P P Flexibility of Data Model Item level P Description Hierarchies cme Generate EAD Finding Aids Aids Online Functions User Permissions Y Y Y y y y y y YI N Y Y Harvesting ATOM Syndication Y Configuration Spell Check ESE N N y y A A N OR y Bug Reporting N y N y y y yY y Y NI Y Interoperability NR with Digital Repository Systems Web Publishing Y Browse YI Search YI Built inHelp Y Link to Images and Other Files Easy Data Entr lt i p lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt Z z lt lt lt x p B K K lt Z lt lt lt lt lt Z K lt lt K da I IL de NR d Bl pi ll lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt E K d da f lt lt lt i Lada lt lt lt lt S BE p lt k k lt KiK lt lo lt k x lt ik x g E pp Y Y Y Y lt k x lt k k lt L E E WwW z lt lt lt 7 lt lt Xlo Z lt Z lt z ll E f lt ink lt LL LL LL LL ld Jl lt lt lt lt lt l f J Lisa Spiro 44 Appendix 3 Archival Management Systems Features Matrices Full Note I prepared the initial version of each archival management system feature matrix To ensure accuracy and completeness I then gave the ve
39. you to enter once and generate multiple reports When we met with Cuadra STAR we saw a demo the electronic resources librarian understood everything and I understood everything on archives side We both liked the service and liked it from the user side of things It s pricier than freeware but they worked with us to find the appropriate price based on how many users can use it at one time Since we re small we didn t need many licenses We have lots of different types of materials book archival collections history A V etc Our regular library system didn t handle photos or archives well but Cuadra has different modules to address these areas Right now we are using MARC for library cataloging We also have Star Archive amp Star Images We are just starting to use Star Archive for finding aids we have a few in an earlier version of Cuadra software called Finding Aids We re also using Star Archives for a digital journals project T was not in on choosing it but I think it was a choice based on flexibility There were the most options available with Cuadra The customer service was very good They were helpful Installation and Maintenance We run it on our own server It has worked very well and we have successfully gone through upgrades The Cuadra folks put out nice instructions for updating If there is a problem they can help us right away Ease of Customization Depending on what you want
40. ARC Yes including batch import Imports Tab Yes CSV Delimited Files CSV Imports Digital Image Yes Files Import Accession Batch import data from MARC EAD XML or CSV format Data Batch Import EAD Yes Batch Import MARC Yes Batch Import CSV Yes Collection Management Features Appraisals No Accessions Yes Enter basic information for recently received materials Link accessions to one or more existing collections or record groups e Transfer basic accession records into collections records for Archival Management Software 55 further editing e List unprocessed materials in an accessions manager Create Deeds of Gift No Prioritize Processing Yes Order Track Donors No Project Management No Record Condition An AV Preservation Assessment module is expected in June 2009 Manage Locations Yes Track room range section and shelf locations for each collection Manage Restricted Materials Yes Manage Rights Not really although there is a rights field Manage Loans and No Exhibits Deaccessioning No Reference Support Not really but Archon allows archives to manage information related to researcher accounts and appointments established by researchers Users can register accounts place collections series folders and items into a virtual cart email the list to the archives and establish appointment times The menus i
41. Archival Management Software A Report for the Council on Library and Information Resources by Lisa Spiro January 2009 Council on Library and Information Resources Washington D C About the Author Lisa Spiro directs Rice University s Digital Media Center where she manages digital projects provides training in XML markup digital research tools and multimedia studies emerging educational technologies and oversees the university s central multimedia lab A Frye Leadership Institute fellow she received her Ph D in English from the University of Virginia where she worked at the Electronic Text Center and served as the managing editor of Postmodern Culture She has published and presented on book history institutional repositories and the scholarly use of digital archives She blogs about digital scholarship in the humanities at http digitalscholarship wordpress com Contents Acknowled ment ds a da Vv ROLE W OL interaction dada colada colas cet vi LO AUCH OM A AS A A ok ats ek oe es 1 2 The Problem of Hidden Collections seseina 1 3 The Role of Software in Addressing Hidden CollectiONS oeoommmmmm 3 A Research Met a a A Ani 8 5 How to Select Archival Management Software ocoocincnononnnnnmrnmmamrnmrnmrns 9 6 Criteria for Choosing Archival Software es sssssssesssessseesressseeriesriesrressiesseeseee 10 7 Types Of DOLLW ALE asno 18 8 Possible Approaches to Federating Archival Description from Mul
42. EAD Yes Exports Dublin Core Yes Exports MODS Optional by adding XSLT stylesheets Exports METS Optional by adding XSLT stylesheets Exports MADS Optional by adding XSLT stylesheets Batch Exports EAD Optional by adding XSLT stylesheets Batch Exports MARC Yes Batch Export Tab Yes Delimited Files Imports EAD Yes Imports MARC Yes Imports Tab Delimited Yes Files CSV Imports Digital Image Yes Files Import Accession Data Yes Batch Import EAD Yes Batch Import MARC Yes Batch Import CSV Yes Collection Management Features Appraisals Yes Accessions Yes Create Deeds of Gift Yes Prioritize Processing Order Yes through the accessions module Track Donors Yes Project Management No Record Condition Yes with purchase of conservation module Manage Locations Yes Manage Restricted Yes Materials Manage Rights Yes Manage Loans and Yes Exhibits Lisa Spiro 46 Deaccessioning Yes Reference Support Yes Generate Reports Yes Track Repository Yes Statistics Resource Description Authority Control Yes Controlled Vocabulary Yes Pre defined thesauri and term lists e g the UNESCO Thesaurus may optionally be pre loaded into the system Compliance to ISAD G EAD ISAAR CPF Archival Standards Data Validation Yes using the validated fields and field entry templates Templating Default Yes Fields Support
43. GML XML authoring tool STAR Archives dynamically creates EAD finding aids as XML files whenever you need them STAR Archives provides support for many standards including ISAD g DACS Dublin Core and EAD License Commercial Two options are available a perpetual license and a subscription to the hosted service Purchasing Cost The price depends on whether STAR Archives is hosted by the company or on the institution s own servers as well as the number of simultaneous users supported and several other variables Training data conversion maintenance and peripherals also entail separate costs Cost estimates are provided on request Maintenance Cost Software maintenance is included in the subscription cost of the hosted solution For the perpetual license the first year of software maintenance is free User Support Available 12 hours a day Monday Friday Users can contact support by phone e mail or fax Web site Teleconferencing Web conference Reputed to provide good customer service Lisa Spiro 64 Training Yes Generally delivered via teleconference however on site training is also available For teleconferenced training 12 hours initial training 6 hours follow up training For onsite training 3 days on site System management training is in addition System Requirements Varies by the operating s
44. IF PNG TIFF PSD Photoshop BMP Tilepic e Multi page documents PDF PS Postscript Microsoft Word e Video QuickTime RealMedia WindowsMedia FLV Flash MPEG 2 MPEG 4 e Audio MP3 AIFF WAV e Multimedia SWF Flash QuickTime VR Archival Management Software 85 CollectiveAccess is capable of converting non Web viewable formats such as TIFF into Web friendly formats JPEG for example at various sizes The original format can be retained and made accessible for download For small files conversion and resizing may be done in near real time For larger files which can take a considerable amount of time to process conversion tasks can be queued for later processing on a designated media processing server Whatever the uploaded file size cataloguers are never forced to wait for long while media files are processed Support for individual media types is implemented using a modular plug in architecture which makes it possible to add support for new media formats without requiring modifications to the core CollectiveAccess system Video files are automatically converted to Flash Video format for playback with CollectiveAccess s built in video player The originally uploaded video file is retained as well and can be played back if the user s browser supports the format Similarly uploaded audio files are converted to MP3 format for playback with Collective Access s built in audio player with original files
45. LG Programs July 1 2008 37 http www archiveshub ac uk index html 38 http www mimas ac uk Archival Management Software 31 contributions from other relevant repositories Nev ertheless it is probably more appropriate as a model than as a repository for U S finding aids ProQuest s Archives USA is a current directory of over 5 500 repositories and more than 161 000 col lections of primary source material across the United States It provides online access to the NUCMC from 1959 to the present names and subject indexes from the National Inventory of Documentary Sources NIDS in the United States and collection descrip tions contributed by archives Like ArchiveGrid Archives USA allows repositories to contribute finding aids at no cost but requires a subscription to access 2 Harvest EAD from distributed repositories through OAI PMH Atom or another technology Existing technologies such as OAI PMH and Atom support harvesting and aggregating content from distributed repositories The University of Illinois Urbana Champaign UIUC has already developed preliminary OAI services and tools to harvest infor mation from EAD and other sources As UIUC found converting EAD to OAI PMH poses several challenges mapping a single EAD file to multiple OAI records the variability of EAD encoding practices the complex hierarchical structure of EAD finding aids and contextualizing individual results within the
46. Management Software International Council on Archives Available at http www ica org en node 30064 Lakhan Shaheen E and Kavita Jhunjhunwala 2008 Open Source Software in Education EDUCAUSE Quarterly 31 2 32 40 Available at http connect educause edu Library EDUCAUSE Quarterl y OpenSourceSoftwareinEduca 46592 Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control 2008 On the Record Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control Available at http www loc gov bibliographic future news index html Mandel Carol Hidden Collections The Elephant in the Closet Fall 2004 RBM A Journal of Rare Books Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage 5 2 106 113 Available at www ala org ala mgrps divs acrl publications rbm backis suesvol5no2 mandel pdf Mugie Hade May 2008 Survey of Archives Management Software ICA AtoM Project Dutch Archiefschool Office of Government Commerce 2002 Open Source Software Guidance on Implementing UK Government Policy Available at http www ogc gov uk documents Open Source Software pdf OSOR EU May 2008 EU European Commission to increase its use of Open Source Available at http www osor eu news eu european commission to increase its use of open Panitch Judith M 2001 Special Collections in ARL Libraries Results of the 1998 Survey Sponsored by the ARL Research C
47. O or North Carolina ECHO and or with an international repository such as OCLC s Ar chives Grid Other archives have adopted XML publishing platforms that allow searching and presentation of finding aids an approach that requires much more technical support but also provides greater control over data These publishing platforms include PLEADE PLEADE is an open source search engine and browser for archival finding aids encoded in XML EAD Based on the SDX platform it is a very flexible Web application e XTE The CDL eXtensible Text Framework XTF is a flexible indexing and query tool that supports search ing across collections of heterogeneous data and pre sents results in a highly configurable manner The California Digital Library uses XTF to enable search and display of its finding aids text and image collec tions and other scholarly projects e Apache Cocoon Archives and consortia such as Five College Archives amp Manuscript Collections are using the open source XML publishing framework Cocoon to publish finding aids University of Chicago s Mark Logic XML Database The University of Chicago is developing an XML pub lishing infrastructure built on MarkLogic a native XML database MarkLogic which is a commercial product was selected because it is robust scalable and easy to use MarkLogic uses XQuery which supports a feature called collection Through the collection tag 2 http
48. Templating Default Yes and copy of entire existing record for minor modification into a Fields new record Support for Digital Yes Include any form of digital content such as documents images Media and multimedia Internationalization Yes Support concurrent users in the language of their choice Flexibility of Data Yes with WebGENCAT database component all components of the Model application can be modified or enhanced Or a new application can be built from scratch Item level Description Yes Reorganize Yes Supports any number of levels user definable names for levels Hierarchies flexible structures within various branches of a tree Dynamically Generate Yes EAD Finding Aids Publish Finding Aids Yes Online Administrative Functions User Permissions Yes Restrict access to sensitive data through privacy and security controls Support for Can export EAD for import into another system EAD contains links Harvesting for dynamic access to source database can link out to other databases Syndication for related data Eloquent s Branch Module supports building a union catalog for consortia of smaller institutions Customization Yes Create additional fields entry screens and reports with Configuration development tools Spell Check Yes Available with some browsers can be added to all other browsers uses the browser vocabulary dict
49. Web based public access module that allows for searching both on and across collections Smart hypertext search links galleries of electronic files and a dual finding aid report that allows the hierarchy for a given collection to be used as a navigation aid are all part of the public access module e Many capabilities are provided to help archivists enter data easily and quickly For instance data can be entered in the Accessions module and then copied into the Cataloging module e Legacy data conversion services are available Archival Management Software 67 ELOQUENT ARCHIVES Home Page http www eloquent systems com products archives shtml Developer Eloquent Systems Inc Developer s Description Eloquent Archives is an integrated application including all the functions for archival description accessioning de accessioning controlling vocabulary custodial management research requests tracking and other workflow management Eloquent Archives software can easily be configured for any size or type of institution Existing customers include state provincial and local government major corporations and small heritage institutions Eloquent Archives complies with international standards such as ISAD G RAD EAD DACS and ISAAR The software supports hierarchical structures and multi dimensional linking of data elements Researchers can easily navigate through the database to
50. Yes Customers that have perpetual licenses can use STAR s toolkit to filter and import such data For others Cuadra staff can import these data on the users behalf Collection Management Features Appraisals Yes Accessions Yes Create Deeds of Gift Yes Prioritize Processing No Order Track Donors Yes Project Management No Record Condition Yes Includes fields for recording condition as well as conservation Manage Locations Yes Manage Restricted Materials Yes Control who can see records as well as the associated images and files Manage Rights Yes Records reproduction and other ownership rights and logs rights granted to others Manage Loans and Exhibits Yes loans Support for exhibit management is planned Deaccessioning Yes Reference Support No Generate Reports Yes customizable report function Track Repository Statistics While the application does not yet meet the standards that are being developed by the University of Michigan several statistical reports are included in STAR Archives Resource Description Authority Control Yes Controlled Yes Vocabulary Compliance to ISAD G EAD Dublin Core DACS Archival Standards Data Validation Yes Templating Default Yes Fields Support for Digital Yes Media Internationalization Partial supports translation of user interfaces Flexib
51. _ Management S oftware_Selection index html Cole Timothy Joanne Kaczmarek Paul Marty Chris Prom Beth Sandore and Sarah Shreeves 2002 Now That We ve Found the Hidden Web What Can We Do With It The Illinois Open Archives Initiative Metadata Harvesting Experience Presented at the Museums and the Web 2002 Boston Mass April 18 20 2002 Available at Lisa Spiro 34 http www archimuse com mw2002 papers cole cole html Collections Trust 2008 Software Survey SPECTRUM Partners Systems Available at http www mda org uk software Council on Library and Information Resources 2008 Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives Building a New Research Environment Washington DC Council on Library and Information Resources Available at http www clir org activities details hiddencollections htm l de Catanzaro Christine Jody Lloyd Thompson and Kent Woynowski 2007 Archivists Toolkit Issues in Implementation Presented at the GALILEO Users Group Meeting Fort Valley Georgia May 17 2007 Available at http smartech gatech edu handle 1853 14405 Dewhurst Basil 2001 Planning and Implementing a Collection Management System Health and Medicine Museums Newsletter 20 July Available at http archive amol org au hmm pdfs hmm20 pdf Di Bella Christine 2007 Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries PACSCL 30 month Consortial S
52. ad very rudimentary accessions database in 2004 we ve come a long way AT would be helpful for processing hidden collections Right now we are cleaning up our accessions database As we re putting locations into locations guides I m finding some high priority hidden collections AT has a business plan there is a plan for ongoing operations that encourages us And for us personally we have IT support that is really good Should AT not become sustainable in future we have ways in which we can seek IT support to sustain it on an ongoing basis ourselves Sustainability is not as much a concern for us as it might be for smaller archives But AT is looking at that and managing it pretty well for an open source tool We re finally getting a place to put name and subject authority files and are really glad that we re finally getting a complete accessions database All that information is linked names are linked up with accessions and resources It s a great tool It s going to be a great way to plan processing It s one thing that has made our archives move forward with all of our management for our archives T think AT works really well We had been thinking about using it to play around with producing METS digital objects We re in the process of doing mass digitization of archival collections digitizing stuff at folder level and linking METS objects to finding aids and are figuring out how to crea
53. aids and some in combinations Accessions information until recently was done in paper form only which made it difficult from a reference standpoint to locate that information quickly We built a small database in InMagic around 1998 Location information is still managed in an Access database All of that information was all over the place and still pretty much is We had to look in all those places and had to keep those systems up What I liked about AT was it was free I knew some of the people involved in building it and trusted their judgment and I felt like they built it with a lot of input from archival community which has its pros and cons it slows down development time but hopefully it meets as many needs of community as possible With the latest upgrade they ve added new stuff Based on AT s recent survey they re pushing at areas that we would like to see added to it But we re still struggling to fill in data for features they already have Looking at it and seeing it demonstrated it looked easy to use And it is particularly if you are familiar with archival terminology and descriptive fields I liked the thought that we would be able to link our accessions information to our descriptive information I liked that we could output easily to EAD Our old system involved a lot of manual work Now we can quickly spit out EAD or MARC I haven t done much with the print version of output yet but I think they are making improvements t
54. ailable digital surrogates of items such as images texts audio files or video Many archival management systems offer a digital library or online exhibit function to provide Web based access to items in their collections In evaluating these features ar Archival Management Software 17 chives should consider what kind of media and metadata formats they support as well as how media are presented For instance CollectiveAccess has rich features for media support including the automatic generation of MP3s upon loading an audio file to the server an image viewer with pan and zoom and the ability to mark time codes within video files However some archives may want to use a separate digital asset management system DAM such as ContentDM DSpace or Fedora to provide online access to their collections since they are using these robust systems for other digital collections These institutions will want an easy way to batch export relevant metadata from their archival management system or even better a way to plug in their archival management system to their DAM ICA AToM plans to use a plug in architecture for exposing the application to Web services or allowing it to interface with other Web services such as DSpace or Fedora Support for collection management Some systems offer robust support for managing archival collections including appraisals locations condition and conservation and rights and restrictions
55. al Col Lisa Spiro 12 lection s recommendation Since not all institutions are currently employing applicable national standards the development of easy to use tools for file encoding and cataloging emerges as a priority These tools should be simple enough to be used by students or paraprofessionals working under the supervision of librarians or archivists Jones 2003 11 Open source versus commercial Perhaps the most fundamental choice that archives will make is whether to select an open source or a commercial system Increasingly governmental and educational orga nizations are embracing open source software For in stance the European Commission has endorsed open source software because it offers a greater diversity of solutions improves the development process through community input offers faster deployment through cus tomizability and leads to enhanced technical skills of IT staff OSOR EU 2008 According to OSS Watch a service funded by JISC open source offers many advantages it facilitates rapid bug fixing is typically more secure en ables customization supports internationalization and protects against vendor lock in or the collapse of the ven dors Wilson 2007 In addition open source software is typically free flexible and continually evolving assum ing an active development community Lakhan and Jhunjhunwala 2008 Open source software is often sup ported on or portable to a number of platfor
56. ally have their support on the phone with us They ve been very helpful in terms of walking us through various changes When we used Eloquent s DOS system we had tweaked our system so much that when any upgrades came we couldn t do the upgrades any more This time around we went with the system based on what they had and they were able to implement all of the stuff we had changed It went pretty smoothly User Community Support There are no training manuals so we need to figure out what they ve called things and how the scripts run We re learning how to do things User support is really responsive to questions The main drawback is that they do not have a manual often there isn t anything in the help notes The service aspect is weak T had an assistant who did the most of the interactions with Eloquent and in general we found it to be good It sometimes takes a couple of hours or a day to get a response but on the whole user support has been very good User support has been excellent They respond almost immediately They offer to walk you through something They ll provide detailed instructions via e mail or the telephone We re looking at the same thing as the changes are happening Their customer service up to this point has been really great Weaknesses We have to do communication with the company by phone or pay someone to come here It would be nice if we had an in house system
57. always find quirks when you start something and they expedite everything and tell you how to do it Merv Richter president of Eloquent was involved through all of the steps ensuring that his staff was there to help us They pretty much held our hands through the entire process Strengths We use it for all of our workflow receiving accession creating descriptive records tracking researchers appraisal authority control retention schedules etc You can create EAD with the system but we haven t done that yet Supposedly you can push a button and automatically generate it Comparatively they are cheaper at least when we were initially looking around It s tailorable We re not stuck with an out of the box model that s our high point We envision sticking with them for next several years since the system fits everything we wanted to T think the product itself has a lot of potential I liked GenCat I like Web GenCat OK There are hotlinks to subjects and authors What s nice about the system is that it would be easy to export every field is delineated and it s straightforward where the data lives It s very easy to use and does exactly what you would want in an archival system An archival system is really quite difficult in its organization We had tried to design our own but to have all of those problems thought out in advance is very useful since Eloquent includes features we did
58. anagement Software 5 itself cannot solve the problem of hidden collections what matters is how software is used and incorporated into streamlined effective workflows Although archival management systems such as Archon and Archivists Toolkit can play an important role in facilitating the production of EAD and MARC records and streamlining archival workflows Prom a developer of Archon cautions that ar chivists should not treat them as magic bullets They will only prove to be effective in encouraging processing and descrip tive efficiency if they are implemented as part of a strategic management effort to reformulate processing policies proc esses procedures Prom 2008 32 In conversations with archivists I asked what their dream software would be as a way of identifying what features would be most important to them and envisioning what may be possible They often responded that they liked the software applications they were currently using but would add a few features The responses point out some of the strengths of existing software and future directions for software develop ers Through conversations with archivists and a review of existing research I ve identified the following desired features for archival management systems e Integrated Rather than having to enter data in multi ple databases an archivist could enter the data once and generate multiple outputs such as an accession list EAD finding aids
59. and maintenance TSM Program that is optional and renewable on a yearly basis Three levels of support are offered All include access to technical support and free access to all updates of the software Each one is different the higher the level of support the more services included For instance VIP includes on site support at the client site for 10 days per year along with 1 hour response times guaranteed whereas basic level support means only access to live telephone resources from Monday to Friday only 7 a m to 7 p m The levels are e 15 BASIC TSM fee 19 PREMIUM TSM fee e 25 VIP TSM fee Archival Management Software 77 This includes software updates and services for technical support There are no further ongoing costs and even the TSM is optional not required User Support e Help desk and depending on the level of TSM see above ability to define your contact within MINISIS Inc to ensure you have resources familiar with you and your application Access to documentation knowledgebase User groups regional and international Chat remote desktop Net meetings Manuals Site visits Training Yes System Requirements e Windows NT or later on server e XP2 or better on clients e IIS MINISIS recommends updates based on Microsoft s indication of support Technical Architecture Stand alone client server or thin Web client architecture is supported along with ASP h
60. and the need for particular features Comparing archival management systems yields several key factors that distinguish them from each other Here are some of the criteria that archives should consider in selecting an archival management system Automating the processing and description of collections through the archival management system versus generat ing EAD by hand and managing collections through other software Archival management systems offer a number of advan tages particularly to archives that do not already have large quantities of EAD finding aids or are dissatisfied with current workflows A primary advantage of archival management systems is the ability to enter data once and generate multiple outputs Rather than being isolated in separate systems data can be brought together through a single interface reducing redundancy and making it easier to find and manage information Instead of having to un derstand the intricacies of EAD and XML markup archi vists paraprofessionals and student workers can create a valid EAD finding aid by entering information through a series of Web or desktop based forms saving time and producing more consistent finding aids Some archival management systems also enable organizations to publish their finding aids on the Web thus making archival infor mation more widely available However archival management systems can be difficult to Archival Management Software 11 implement in so
61. arch Yes Customizable Yes Built in Help Yes Link to Images and Yes Other Files Easy Data Entry Yes Other Features Yes In addition to the modules listed earlier MINISIS comes with a complete SMA toolkit that allows for changing everything from indexing to screens to reports for instance Also the complete Web interface called MINISIS Web Interface or MWI for short allows users to set up and share restrict data or types of interfaces via the M2A Also MINISIS provides a product called MINT which integrates archival museum and library applications into one allowing for total management of most materials kept in these organizations through one interface Archival Management Software 81 COLLECTIVEACCESS Home Page http www collectiveaccess org Developer Whirl i Gig along with partner institutions Developer s Description Formerly called OpenCollection CollectiveAccess is a full featured collections management and online access application for museums archives and digital collections It is designed to handle large heterogeneous collections that have complex cataloguing requirements and require support for a variety of metadata standards and media formats Unlike most other collections management applications CollectiveAccess is completely Web based All cataloging search and administrative functions are accessed using common Web browser software untying users from spe
62. ations that involve using tools and measures to assess processing priorities Two of these recom mendations are Develop qualitative and quantitative measures for the evaluation of special collections and Support collection mapping to reveal the existence of special collections strengths and gaps as well as to identify hidden collections ARL 2006 Such tools are outside the scope of this report but it is important to acknowledge the role of related technologies Examples of tools and protocols that can be used to assess collections and prioritize processing include the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Some tools already provide support for offline editing or data creation through a handheld device For example PastPerfect s Scatter Gather module allows archives to enter information offline through a desktop client then create a transfer file that is merged with the main data MINISIS also supports data entry through mobile devices Lisa Spiro 8 Libraries PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative OCLC s WorldCat collection analysis tool the Univer sity of California Berkeley s survey tool and Columbia University s Mellon Survey database In some cases such as with the PACSCL FileMaker da tabase the information collected through these survey tools can be used as the basis for accessions databases and for DACS compliant EAD or MARC records Di Bella 2007 4 Research Method In comp
63. b org pubs news04 01 yale htm Lisa Spiro 38 Appendix 1 The Archival Workflow Archivists typically follow an established workflow in appraising acquiring processing and preserving archival collections carefully documenting each step along the way and using checklists and other workflow tools to guide the process As part of their workflow archives produce a range of documentation including paper and electronic forms lists spreadsheets databases catalog records finding aids in Microsoft Word or EAD and Web pages Below we describe the documentation typically produced in archives with the recognition that practices vary 1 Appraisal Definition Determining which records should be acquired by the archive and estimating their value as it relates to the goals and mission of the archive Documentation produced Appraisal report documenting evaluation of the collection 2 Accession Definition Acquiring collections and documenting the transfer of materials through a log book database register or other means Documentation produced e Accession record Basic information about the collection such as date of receipt accession number donor information collection size and monetary value if applicable e Update to accession register log Logbook and or database with basic information on accession record e Deed of gift transfer record Documents legal transfer of title e Donor form Donor contact informatio
64. browser End users can e View download and use digital objects electronic records e Easily navigate from digital objects to archival descriptions and vice versa Jump easily between collections and digital objects sharing the same subject creator or archival record group Archon plans to investigate the addition of a user annotation feature so that archival end users can submit comments regarding archival collections and or individual digital objects Archival Management Software 57 Browse Yes Users can browse materials by collection title digital object title controlled subject heading creator authority record or archival record group e Provides hyperlinks to other collections and digital objects that are related by provenance subject or creator e Unlike the traditional archival finding aid which spreads collection level descriptive information over several pages Archon provides links to all essential information above the fold in the Web browser so that users do not need to scroll to find essential information Search e Search queries can be entered against either collection level records or the full content of finding aids including box and folder lists e Simultaneously search descriptions of archival materials electronic records and digital objects e View print and search finding aids for individual collections
65. ch Import MARC MARC XML Batch Import YML Yes Batch Import CSV Yes Collection Management Features Appraisals Yes Accessions Yes Create Deeds of Gift Yes Prioritize Processing Order Track Donors Yes Project Management Record Condition Manage Locations Yes Manage Restricted Materials Manage Rights Yes Manage Loans and Exhibits Deaccessioning Reference Support Yes retrieval and reproduction requests Generate Reports Yes Track Repository Yes Statistics Resource Description Authority Control Yes Controlled Vocabulary Yes Controlled vocabularies functions subjects places used throughout the system e g as access points or in drop down value lists Organized into separate taxonomies Compliance to Yes ICA AtoM is built around the International Council on Archival Standards Archives ICA descriptive standards General International Standard Archival Description ISAD G 2nd edition 1999 International Standard Archival Authority Record Corporate bodies Persons Families ISAAR CPF 2nd edition 2003 Lisa Spiro 74 International Standard For Describing Institutions with Archival Holdings ISDIAH 1st edition March 2008 Future iterations of ICA AtoM will support e International Standard For Describing Functions ISDF 1st edition May 2007 Digital object metadata is based on METS Data Validation 2 Templating Default Yes Admin can cr
66. charging fees for delivering ICA AtoM related training workshops 3 creating a purely voluntary institutional membership model based on fees or contributions in kind to pool the resources of those institutions that are using ICA AtoM 4 charging a commission for brokering ICA AtoM technical services between recommended third party contractors and institutions seeking assistance with ICA AtoM installation hosting customization new feature development etc A bounty model is also being considered Example Users Dutch Archiefschool Research Institute Unique Features e Supports single or multi repository implementations e Follows accessibility best practices e Provides multi lingual interfaces and content translation features e Will support harvesting and syndication through OAI and ATOM e Will interface with digital repositories Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC Yes Exports EAD Yes Exports Dublin Core Yes Archival Management Software 73 Exports MODS Yes Exports METS Yes Exports MADS 2 Batch Exports EAD Yes Batch Exports MARC Yes Batch Export Tab Yes Delimited Files Imports EAD Yes Imports MARC Yes Imports Tab Delimited Yes Files CSV Imports Digital Image Yes Files Import Accession Data Batch Import EAD Yes Bat
67. cific operating systems and making cataloguing by distributed teams and online access to collections information simple efficient and inexpensive License GNU General Public License GPL version 2 Purchasing Cost Free Maintenance Cost Free User Support FAQ Web site Forum Mailing list CollectiveAccess User s Guide and System Administrator s Guide are being prepared e TRAC development wiki Training Available from developers Cost is based upon location and desired scope of training System Requirements e User Any operating system that can run a modern Web browser including Mac OS X Windows 2000 2003 XP Linux BSD and Solaris is supported Does not require a live Internet connection It can just as easily be run on an internal access only network as on a public one In fact the majority of users we are aware of run CollectiveAccess on internal networks without Internet access A few users have even taken this one step further and run CollectiveAccess on their laptops in a network of one single user configuration Server The CollectiveAccess server software should run on any Unix like operating system as well as Windows 2003 Server and Windows XP This covers all commonly deployed operating systems CollectiveAccess is tested on several distributions of Linux Debian Red Hat Enterprise Linux SuSE Windows 2003 Windows XP and Mac OS X 10 4 Technical Archit
68. create complete valid documents that are DACS compatible The big challenge with AT is that it leaves a lot of options open to the user You have to make choices and there are lots of different notes available to you What a grad student would need is for someone to say This is what we want to do that is there should be guidelines locally to say how you work with his You wouldn t want to build the constraints into the software Strengths The accessioning module is better than anything out there or that we could develop on own We implemented the accessioning module first and it s pretty much what we re using now The promise of having a single database for collection management You do the accession record push a button convert to a resource record and export as EAD and MARC It s not quite there yet but it s moving in that direction T actually like the fact that it is a database where people are forced to separate different data elements it helps standardize data and produce finding aids quickly AT makes it quicker to produce finding aids Archival Management Software 97 T haven t found anything better particularly for the price It s a noble effort by members of our profession to fill a gap It seems that they ve gone about it the right way Of the free products out there they ve got a good shot at keeping it going particularly with the amount of implementations of it out there
69. de a few general recommendations for selecting software based on the CHIN guide and other sources Selecting software should be a collaborative process so that all the stakeholders archivists technical staff administration researchers etc can describe how they would use it and pro vide input into what is selected To ensure that the selection process stays on course the team should establish a project plan with clear milestones and areas of responsibility As a first step archives should conduct a needs assessment to evaluate current gaps and workflows Do they really need new software and is now the best time given available re sources current projects etc to pursue it What are the weaknesses of their current software How does information flow through the system What kind of information is cap tured by whom when and for what purposes What workflows do archives want to change and retain What is the desired outcome of adopting new software Answering these questions will help organizations define their require ments Working collaboratively team members should then prioritize requirements generating a weighted features checklist In addition to features such as support for EAD or support for managing locations archivists should weigh factors such as the quality of user support the reputation of the vendor cost technical requirements and the robustness and appro For more guidance on
70. dural language can be used to develop powerful and sophisticated data validation and manipulation procedures All Adlib standard systems are delivered with tools so that you can customize the system yourself or have our consultants do the work for you Spell Check Yes Bug Reporting No but found bugs can be reported using the MyAdlib Web site Archival Management Software 47 Interoperability with Yes Digital Repository Systems User Interface Web Publishing Yes with purchase of Adlib Internet Server The optional Adlib Internet Server module enables any Adlib database to be searched from a standard Web Browser over an Intranet or the Internet Support for the Open Archives Initiative OAI is included Adlib Information Systems can also build a customised Web application for your Adlib Internet Server offering a wide range of possibilities and great flexibility Browse Yes Search Yes The Search Wizard takes the user step by step through browsing and searching a number of pre defined indexes such as Reference Code Creator Subjects and Places etc Query by Form this technique allows simple searching across multiple fields The Search Language allows searching across all fields in any combination whether indexed or not Queries can include Boolean and logical operators and left or right truncation Results are returned as sets which may also be combined Both que
71. e Page http www museumsoftware com Developer PastPerfect Software Inc U S company Developer s PastPerfect sets the standard for collection management software It Description is affordable flexible and easy to use for both small organizations and large collections PastPerfect conforms to the latest standards for cataloging archive library historic object art object natural history archaeology and photograph collections It encompasses every aspect of collection and membership management Automate accessions cataloging loans in loans out exhibits condition reporting and repatriation Use Research and Reports for full access to your data PastPerfect now has over 6 200 clients License Commercial Purchasing Cost 870 for PastPerfect Basic Program Version 4 0 full price e Prices for add on features such as Digital Imaging Multi Media Network Upgrades Barcode Printing Virtual Exhibit PastPerfect Online etc available at http www museumsoftware com e AASLH institutional members receive a 20 discount Maintenance Cost There are no required annual fees with PastPerfect Recommended annual support contracts range from 330 720 AASLH institutional members receive a 20 discount Without an annual support contract clients pay 85 per incident User Support e User s guide e FAQs video tech tips field descriptions and other free downloads available at Web site e Free
72. e advantage of ASP and XML technology you should run Microsoft Internet Information Services IIS a component of Windows on a Windows 2000 or 2003 Server Technical Architecture e Desktop client Win32 e Database backend SQL server Oracle e or Adlib proprietary database e ASPX Internet application Backup Restore There is no integrated backup restore utility DBMS tools must be Utility used to backup restore Maturity Adlib archive is in use in at least 50 archives and the general Adlib software has been in use in more than1 600 institutions for over 20 years Archival Management Software 45 Hosting Available Yes Demo Sandbox Yes Windows based Available Sustainability The Adlib archive software is based on international archival standards such as ISAD G and ISAAR The software implements EAD data exchange but also has OAI and SRU API s The product s use of XML makes Adlib Archive a sustainable product Example Users London Borough of Hillingdon Central Library Senate House Library Special Collections University of London International Monetary Fund Washington D C Archive of the City of Amsterdam the Netherlands Bermuda Archives Bermuda Center for Documentation and Research Abu Dhabi Unique Features OAI Support Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC Yes Exports
73. e mail newsletter has tips on using PastPerfect e Technical and software operations support teams help desk Training Yes PastPerfect software offers online training for collections management The introductory rate is 59 person Three day regional training sessions cover collections management reports Virtual Exhibit and contacts management The cost is 119 per person per day e On site training is available for 750 per day plus travel expenses A 2 day minimum is required System Requirements Minimum hardware Windows XP Vista Server 2003 operating systems 1 GHz processor 512 MB RAM for XP 2 GB RAM for Vista 1024x768 resolution color monitor CD ROM drive laser or inkjet printer Preferred hardware Intel Pentium 4 2 GHz processor 2 GB RAM for XP 3 GB RAM for Vista 19 color monitor CD DVD recordable drive high speed Internet access Archival Management Software 89 Technical Architecture PastPerfect Version 4 0 is based in Microsoft Visual FoxPro 8 Itis a relational database With a network upgrade users may install the program on multiple networked computers that share a dataset Backup Restore utility Yes Maturity Past Perfect Version 4 0 was released in October 2004 Hosting Available PastPerfect is not Web based The PastPerfect Online Upgrade enables PastPerfect users to select the PastPerfect catalog records images and data fields they want to publis
74. e of available access is through card catalog records or manual finding aids which suggests that researchers often must be physically present at special collections and archives to know what they hold Pantich 2001 8 As the ARL Task Force on Special Collections argues the failure to process collections holds back research leads to duplicates being purchased and makes them more vulnerable to being stolen or lost because libraries and archives don t know what they have Studies have shown that between 25 percent and 30 percent of researchers have not been able to use collections because they have not been processed Greene and Meissner 2005 211 As a result stakeholders such as researchers and donors become frustrated Indeed in a much discussed article Greene and Meissner report that at 51 of repositories researchers donors and or resource allocators had become upset because of backlogs 2005 212 To confront the problem of unprocessed collections Greene and Meissner promote a new set of arrangement preserva tion and description guidelines that 1 expedites getting collection materials into the hands of users 2 assures ar rangement of materials adequate to user needs 3 takes the minimal steps necessary to physically preserve collection ma terials and 4 describes materials sufficient to promote use 2005 212 213 Meeting researchers needs for access to ma terials trumps achieving perfection in arc
75. e reading room we haven t gotten negative feedback We re pleased with its flexibility and power We like how you can search at the top level highlight results and search within finding aids The ability to export to MARC and EAD is exciting for us We have minimal cataloging support for MARC To hit a button and have the majority of the work done is exciting Especially for EAD we don t have the staff to do markup of finding aids I like how you can customize Archon it s easy to change the look of it There are a lot of things you can do if you have some programming support We ve been using students to support customizations When I show it to people we always talk about the out of box Web presence it s a really big deal to small institutions The browsability of it is great Archival Management Software 103 Everyone in the department can use it With EAD people who were using it had to go to 2 days of training For people who aren t working with it every day it s hard to remember how everything works Archon is a lot simpler I m going to train our photo tech on Archon then go in and set up series and subseries I expect it will take 30 minutes to show him what to do e Archon publishes directly to Web You don t have to deal with the systems department or replace each file when there needs to be a change e Archon just added an archival management feature in its latest ve
76. e support for time based cataloging e Web based which facilitates distributed cataloging and enables administrative users to do enter metadata and search collections online Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC Not yet but due with next release Exports EAD Not yet but due with next release Exports Dublin Core Not yet but due with next release Exports MODS Not yet but MODS import and export planned for upcoming release Exports METS Not yet but METS import and export planned for upcoming release Exports MADS Not yet but MADS import and export planned for upcoming release Batch Exports EAD Not yet but due with next release Batch Exports MARC Not yet but due with next release Batch Export Tab Not yet but due with next release Delimited Files Imports EAD Not yet but due with next release Imports MARC Not yet but due with next release Imports Tab Delimited Files CSV Not yet but due with next release Imports Digital Image Files Yes Batch upload of media files The File Space is a holding area for media files to be added to object records Using a Web browser based user interface media may be uploaded to the File Space in large batches as ZIP Tar Gzip or GZip encoded archives for subsequent cataloguing In most cases this is considerably faster than uploading media file by file Import Accession Data Not yet but due with next
77. eate templates Fields Support for Digital Yes Upload and display of digital media Interface to digital media Media repositories Internationalization Yes All screen elements buttons links fields labels and database contents can be translated into multiple languages The current version of ICA AtoM v1 0 beta supports the following languages Dutch English French Portuguese Spanish e UTF 8 character support e Will support all languages using left to right right to left and up to down scripts Flexibility of Data Yes custom user fields crosswalks to other standard Model Item level Description Yes Support for Yes multilevel description Hierarchical Description Dynamically Generate Yes EAD Finding Aids Publish finding aids Yes online Administrative Functions User Permissions Yes Roles include Researcher Contributor Editor Translator and Administrator Support for Yes via OAI and IETF Atom Publishing Protocol APP Harvesting Syndication Customization Yes custom menus application configuration settings Configuration Spell Check 2 Bug Reporting Online bug issue tracking database available to public Interoperability with ICA AtoM can be used by a single institution for its own Digital Repository descriptions or it can be set up as a multi repository union list Systems Multi accepting descriptions from any number of contributing
78. eatures Archivists want software that helps them manage and track their operations more efficiently Several interviewees wanted to be able to track reference statistics while others would like to generate temporary records and track locations e Portable Archivists often work in environments where they do not have access to a desktop computer or even to the network such as the home of a donor or a room in a small museum As a result they may begin col lecting data using offline software such as spread sheets Once they return to their offices they have to redo much of the work to make it fit into their existing systems According to one archivist It would be use ful if we could begin processing on site where we first encounter the material We have to begin again each time we start a new stage Archival software could thus support offline data entry allowing archivists to enter data into a laptop and then upload it into an ar chival management system once they have network connectivity Perhaps archival management system could also support data entry through mobile wireless device such as iPhones Aids in setting priorities for processing Some archi val management systems enable archives to record which collections are higher priorities thus allowing archivists to plan processing more effectively In de fining approaches to hidden collections the ARL Spe cial Collections Task Force put forward several rec ommend
79. ecture Written in PHP and MySQL Backup Restore Backup and restore is possible using free tools bundled with MySQL Utility Maturity Work on what became CollectiveAccess began in 2003 The first public release version 0 50 was made available in March of 2007 Version 0 54 released on May 31 2008 Lisa Spiro 82 Hosting Available No Collective Access specific hosting services are available at this time A commercial vendor in Belgium is considering such a service for debut in 2009 However CollectiveAccess has been designed for compatibility with low cost Internet service providers such as land1 Internet Pair Networks HostMySite com Demo Sandbox Yes Available Sustainability Project is supported by a diverse group of museums historical societies archives and corporate archives in the United States and Europe Example Users Royal Museum for Central Africa Tervuren Belgium Berkeley Natural History Museums University of California Berkeley Coney Island History Project Durst Organization Parrish Art Museum Unique Features e Customizable e Flexible data model accommodates many different types of collections and supports different data standards and controlled vocabularies e Robust support for multimedia including images audio video and text Built in tool for zooming and panning images When you upload audio files they are automatically converted to MP3 Provides simpl
80. ed to provide a union list although such a solution may not be flexible enough to accommodate the varied methods archives use to deliver archival information 9 Conclusion Hidden collections pose complex challenges to archives and special collections but implementing appropriate software can help organizations work more efficiently and provide broader access to archival information Adopting new software however will require that archives adjust their workflows and import existing data into the new system This study identifies some of the key requirements for archival management software so that archivists can make informed selections In choosing software archives should determine which requirements are most important Do they need to publish finding aids online Do they need to import and export data in particular formats Do they want support for key management functions such as accessioning and gener ation of reports Do they prefer commercial or open source software In addition they should carefully study factors such as cost customer service and core functionality This report has aimed to outline the collective understanding of archival management software at this time and to provide a basis for expanding that knowledge Archival Management Software 33 Works Cited Author s note I have bookmarked over 200 Web pages relevant to this study including most of the resources below at http www diigo com user Ispiro arc
81. elease Feature Adlib AT Archon CALM Cuadra Eloq ICA AtoM System Req Win o Win Y ae et et Mac aes Li o Unix a es Backup Restore AAA Utilit Y ja SSS IES ES Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports Dublin Core Batch Exports MARC mi Delimited Files Imports Tab Delimited Files CSV lt lt Imports Digital Image Files N Import Accession Y Y Y Data y YI Batch Import EAD Y y y y y YI OTTO MARC YN y Y Collection Management Features Appraisals Appraisals a A RRR RE Gift _ Processing Order Track Donors Y y N y YI ProjectMgmt N P N N NI itt lt KK Z Zz Z ZZZ Zl ZIZIZIZIZ ZIZIZ lt jkizi z lt A ARA Bl K AAA Bl ARA Aa lt N Record Condition Y y PTY Manage Locations Y y y Y Archival Management Software 43 Feature Adlib AT Archon CALM Cuadra Eloq ICA M2A CA Past AtoM Perf FT E Materials Manage Rights Yy yf PrP y y y y YE E Y Manage Loans and Exhibits Deaccessioning Y N y y y Y Y y y Reference Support Y N P P N P OO N yY Generate Reports Y AA AA A Statistics Description Authority Control Y Y Y Y y y yY y yY yY Controlled eae E E d Pelee PES A Se S Archival Standards Data Validation Y Y E TE y O y y P e O IA IA A Default Fields Media Internationalization Y N Y y r y y
82. em in place so they were very familiar with our data and data structure That familiarity facilitated a great deal of things GenCat was chosen as the archival descriptive database back in 1996 We used GenCat until 3 years ago when it was experiencing difficulties such as corrupted data We weren t happy with some of the support we were getting from Eloquent We did a review of different software available at that time we looked at MINISIS We also looked at ContentDM as means of holding of descriptive data but our IT people said it might be useful for description but not for other purposes because it wasn t relational Because we weren t totally happy with the other options we liked WebGenCat better than anything else at the time We re happy with some bits but not so happy with others We re using 3 modules library archives and records management The records manager has not been happy with that module and may look to something like Documentum We re happy with the library component that we re using with theses it s flexible shows the records extremely well and is easy to tailor We didn t purchase the part that would allow us to tailor the archives module so we depend on Eloquent to do customizations We ve found that the library component is superior to DSpace For the archives module it has real possibilities that we have not realized Ease of Use It would be easy to use if you train grad students to do it especial
83. ence of our success has been that staff whose primary focus was the processing of collections are now almost wholly engaged in handling reader re quests reference inquiries and licensing agreements leaving them almost no time for processing Simple yet powerful Archivists want software that is as easy to use as Word but transforms to the Web and generates EAD at the click of a button Students and paraprofessionals without strong archival training need software that provides simple templates for en tering data so that they know what information goes where Clear user guides can also assist in ensuring the quality and consistency of data If software is too complex or cumbersome to use much time will be lost The software should be flexible enough to adapt to the archive s existing workflow Rigorous standards based The archival community has embraced standards such as EAD Describing Ar chives A Content Standard DACS and Encoded Archival Context EAC and archivists want software that ensures conformity to these standards The poten tial for inconsistent incorrect data increases as more people participate in describing archival collections Archival management systems can reduce the likeli Archival Management Software 7 hood of error by ensuring that data are entered ac cording to standard archival practices for instance making sure that dates are in the proper format Provides collection management f
84. ent fields One thing is sort of lacking I m a book person and I would like a book a user manual a quick down and dirty how to There is a book but I didn t find it helpful Cuadra is not a big company it s not like you call an 800 number We can call to talk directly to someone who is familiar with our needs They have been responsive to problems There have been very few problems with the server and never for more than 24 hours in the almost three years I ve been working with them Overall it s good I think that the manuals and guides that they distribute are not very good But they are very quick to respond and are happy to sit with you and help you through something However I wish they had more customer service reps with detailed technical knowledge It would be nice to have closer access to tech support rather than sales We funnel through one person I m the one person who speaks with the one person at Cuadra they don t want every person at an institution calling them Weaknesses Cuadra STAR is very specific and I don t have my finding aids in stand alone files I was just talking with OCLC about ArchivesGrid but to participate I would have to export each finding aid as an XML file I can t get the export function to work Some of the functions in Cuadra STAR don t really work yet Sometimes it is limiting to be so contained within that one data management software I can print out a finding aid
85. enting and customizing it at a local institution Studies comparing the total cost of ownership of open source versus proprietary software have produced conflicting findings Each organization should consider what it costs to switch software and what the total cost of adopting the software including staffing and hardware will be Ven Verelst and Mannaert 2008 55 56 Organizations should also consider the maturity of the software including its functionality as well as support training and documentation Wilson 2006 Hosted by company or local institution Some institutions lack the technical infrastructure to install and maintain an archival management system themselves Many companies will host software for organizations enabling archives to focus on their core work In addition to hosting many companies will assist customers in importing legacy data into the software Generally cus tomers who pay a company to host their data reported that there were few technical problems and that the company s servers rarely went down One archivist felt relieved that a company in another part of the country was hosting and backing up her data since her institution is in an area vulnerable to hurricanes Although hosted solutions offer noteworthy conveniences and efficiencies one archivist voiced her frustration that she felt that she was in less control of her data and the way they were presented If the data were hosted locally she could
86. es subjects subjects location or deaccession dates In addition you can search for resources containing a specific instance type for example digital objects and also for specific text within notes Customizable Yes see above Built in Help Yes customizable includes definition and examples Link to Images amp Yes Other Files Lisa Spiro 52 Speed Data Entry Rapid Data Entry feature to allow for repeated entry of component records with fewer mouse clicks than one would use during the process of adding individual component records and then adding instances Customizable Archival Management Software 53 ARCHON 2 1 Home Page http www archon org Developer University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Library and University of Illinois Archives Sousa Archives and Center for American Music Developer s Description Archon is predicated on the notion that a unified Web based application is a lynchpin in expanding access to archival descriptive information digital objects and electronic records In this sense Archon can be thought of as a Content Management System CMS that allows archives and manuscript repositories to describe and provide access to the totality of their holdings Like most content management systems Archon requires only a set of very common free technologies a Web server running PHP 5 0 or higher and a database server such as MySQL It
87. es and Yes Other Files Easy Data Entry Yes Many of the databases have relational features so it is possible to move seamlessly across databases using the database tabs and access any associated records Calm has a dynamic customizable user interface with a context sensitive button strip to help workflow Operations Other Features e Calm is able to concurrently support field and record definitions from multiple standards Record templates classified according to local requirements mean that archival records conform to international archival standards including ISAD G MAD ISAAR CPF and NCA rules the UK SPECTRUM standard is used as a guide for collection management of museum records while standard AACR2 compatible bibliographic structures are used for library materials e Calm is designed to support the concept of hierarchical collection management typically used in the field of archives management but equally relevant in all areas of heritage collection management Records may be created at any level including collection and item The hierarchical structure supports the concept of blank nodes i e item level records may be created initially and collection level records added at a later date Calm catalogue fields are mapped to unqualified Dublin Core elements within the database definitions and these can be used as a basis for data import export and searching e Calm has a sophisticated date parser allowing
88. esults Proposed New Features and Functionality at http www archiviststoolkit org AT 20User 20Group 20SurveyResults FD pdf Lisa Spiro 6 Supports importing legacy data Many archives have already invested a great deal of time in creating EAD finding aids Likewise they want an easy way to im port other data such as accessions information They want software that will seamlessly import existing data which can be a challenge given the variability of EAD documents and other forms of archival data Enables easy exporting of data Given how quickly software becomes obsolete archivists recognize the need for being able to export data cleanly and easily One archivist commented Archival material is so specific that you don t want to get locked into any thing Ideally I would want something that would also preserve that information in a format that is able to migrate if needed Provides Web publishing capabilities Many archives lack the ability to make their finding aids available on line By providing a Web publishing component an archival management system would enable archives to provide wider access to their collections Through on line access archives have found that they become more visible As Victoria Steele 2008 writes As new finding aids become viewable online we have seen over and over that researchers are at our door to con sult the collections they describe But it must be said that a consequ
89. evel Description Yes Describe the series subseries files items etc within each collection Reorganize Yes User can transfer levels to another point in hierarchy Hierarchies Dynamically Generate Yes EAD Finding Aids Publish Finding Aids Yes Online Administrative Functions User Permissions Yes e Add edit or delete user accounts allowing or denying people access to the staff interface e Different levels of permission depending on user type Support for No Harvesting Syndication Customization Yes Configuration e Create new output templates to show the data in any way you choose two such templates are included with the current Archon Distribution packet e My Preferences Change password select administrative interface language and set display order for the user s staff homepage e Phrase Manager Set and change staff interface labels error messages and help texts Spell Check No Bug Reporting Interoperability with Not yet but plans to Increase interoperability with other systems Digital Repository using OAI and SWORD technologies Systems User Interface Web Publishing Archon automatically publishes a Website containing collection level descriptions full finding aids and linked digital objects Regardless of which browser you use to create and edit records Archon s end user output can be viewed with any Web
90. everaging OAI PMH or RDF Resource Description Framework A federated catalog needs to be flexible enough to accom modate the diverse data generated by archives yet rigorous enough to present data in a standard format Options for federating archival data include 1 Make MARC and EAD available through a national international service such as ArchiveGrid Archives USA or Archives Hub Lisa Spiro 30 OCLC s ArchiveGrid includes archival information from thousands of archives in the United States the United Kingdom Germany Australia and other countries Archive Grid draws from two main data streams archival records in WorldCat about 90 percent of the total records and finding aids harv ested from contributing institutions These finding aids can be written in EAD HTML or plain text To set up the harvesting OCLC asks contributors to point to a Web site of finding aids that can be crawled The crawler brings over the text of the finding aid parses it so that it maps to the ArchiveGrid s record structure and adds it to the index For harvested finding aids ArchiveGrid links from its search results to the full finding aid on the contributor s Web site similar to a Google result Thematic collections are not currently represented ArchiveGrid does not yet have consistent topical categories to apply across its varied contributions but that could change Archives pay nothing to contribute records to ArchiveGrid but acces
91. for Digital Yes Media Internationalization Yes Customization to support multilingual data entry supports UTF 8 English Dutch German French Arabic or Greek user interface Data can also be stored in multiple languages multiple language variants for the same field Flexibility of Data Yes Fields can be added new tables can be added Model Item level Description Yes Reorganize Yes Using Adlib Designer you can delete or add levels to this drop Hierarchies down list of six levels or change the names of the levels for instance if you usually speak of a group or collection instead of a fonds and of classes and items instead of series and files and customize the possibilities of your archive hierarchy this way Dynamically Generate Yes EAD Finding Aids Publish Finding Aids Yes using Adlib Internet server Online Administrative Functio ns User Permissions Yes Adlib Archive allows access rights to be assigned to both individual users and groups of users This allows control of access to data and to certain functions such as editing deletion or output of data Support for Yes OAI support via Adlib OAI Server is available at no charge to Harvesting Adlib customers Syndication Customization Yes Fields can be modified added and removed or new data Configuration structures built from scratch Forms menus and reports can likewise be changed and the Adlib proce
92. ftware com virtual_exhibit htm Using PastPerfect Online PastPerfect users may create a searchable online catalog from PastPerfect records http www museumsoftware com pponline htm To see examples of PastPerfect Online sites go to www pastperfect online com Browse Yes Search Yes PastPerfect enables users to search by indexed fields or any field in each catalog Users can also search all four catalogs by keywords common fields people search terms or the lexicon Yes Fully searchable container list for each record Advanced Search Yes Search by any of the fields Customizable There are 22 user defined fields in each catalog Browse screens function keys all reports etc are customizable Built in Help Yes There is a help button that explains each field Link to Images and Other Files Yes with purchase of Digital Imaging Module Easy Data Entry Yes Other Features e Provides customized screens for different types of materials maps photos etc e Provides support for fundraising contacts and the generation of letters e Over 300 built in reports and a Report Maker feature Lisa Spiro 92 Appendix 4 Notes from Interviews with Archivists about Archon Archivists Toolkit Cuadra STAR Archives Eloquent and CollectiveAccess Archivists Toolkit Summary To understand how archivists use Archivists Toolkit AT I conducted phone interviews with five archivist
93. ful for many organizations wishing to create 15 See ArchivesHub s Data Creation Web page for more on XML editors http www archiveshub ac uk arch dc shtml 16 http najustsystems com content php page xmetal a https wikilib umn edu Staff FindingAidsmEAD 18 http www oxygenxml com 1 See http orbiscascade org index northwest digital archives tools 2 See http www ncecho org ncead tools tools_home htm 21 See http www lib virginia edu small vhp admin html 2 See http www archivists org saagroups ead ead2002cookbook html Archival Management Software 21 EAD encoded finding aids Florida Center for Library Automation 2008 4 EAD Cookbook The EAD Cookbook aims to make it easier for archives to create finding aids by providing authoring tools for Oxygen XMetaL and NoteTab In addition it offers a set of stylesheets for transforming XML finding aids into HTML and detailed guidance on creating and publishing EAD finding aids 5 MEX Midosa Editor in XML Standards Describes itself as a set of tools for everyday description work in archival institutions including the production of online finding aids with digitized images from the archival records An open source application developed by the Federal Archives of Germany with support from The Andrew W Mellon Foundation MEX enables archivists to create import and edit EAD finding aids attach digital objects examine an entire XML file or a s
94. g ahead and importing them We need a stylesheet that works with exported AT finding aids and we haven t quite that got yet One of the things that we are considering is importing MARC records instead of the whole EAD which would not only get around importing issues but also give us all the benefit of having our resource module linked up to accessions There s a way in AT to link accessions to resources backwards and forwards there s so much advantageous for us to have those resources in there that maybe a simple MARC record would be plenty for us to get subjects imported There weren t a lot of archival management tools out there we were looking more at database formats that were more or less homegrown When I did research in 2005 I researched database structures in EAD and how things worked for people I found a lot of different archives that had homegrown structures and found out about their limitations we didn t adopt any of those We did hear about Archon and considered that along with AT but at the time it didn t seem to have as many possibilities as AT had for us It didn t at that time have a way of managing accessions it was more a finding aid creation tool for small archives And now it s expanded a little What concerned us a little about Archon is that it didn t have ongoing grant support We saw enough people adopting AT and felt that it had the solidity of ongoing grant support Previously we were using Acce
95. ge ment systems are available A Open Source 1 Archon http www archon org Developed by archivists at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Archon makes it easy for archives to publish their finding aids online As its developers explain Archon automates many technical tasks such as producing an EAD instance or a MARC record Staff members do not need to learn technical coding and can concentrate on accomplishing archival work Little or no training is needed to use the system assuming the staff member or student worker has at least a passing familiarly with basic principles of archival arrangement and description Prom et al 2007 165 Archon which is built on PHP 5 and MySQL enables archivists to capture information about accessions create and publish finding aids online and export EAD and MARC A digital library module supports presenting digital objects along with finding aids A winner of the 2008 Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration MATC Archon is easy to customize and provides support for authority control Explaining the appeal of Archon one archivist noted Archon is free and pretty easy to implement without much IT intervention It gave us a quick and easy way to put collections up on online let patrons search them and Archival Management Software 25 see everything we had Others caution however that importing existing finding aids into Archon can be difficult given the
96. guration representing concepts applicable to anything that can be catalogued things like accession number sets of custom fields also known as attributes may be defined These sets can and usually should map to established metadata standards such as Dublin Core Darwin Core VRA Core 3 0 CDWA Lite et al Lisa Spiro 86 Attributes may be type specific they can be defined such that they are only available for specific types of catalogued items e g photographs video tapes films They may also be repeating and it is possible to impose controls upon input formats Virtually all configuration and administration of an CollectiveAccess installation is performed using a convenient Web based user interface Spell Check Not yet Will happen in v0 7 release Bug Reporting Bugs can be reported at http trac CollectiveAccess org Interoperability with Planned integration with Fedora in 2009 Digital Repository Systems User Interface Web Publishing Yes A full featured search only no cataloguing or editing tools Web based user interface intended for public use This interface provides access to the same search engine used in the cataloguing interface but honors display restrictions set by cataloguers and includes additional presentation options for results including map slide show and timeline based display modes A demo is available here http demo CollectiveAcces
97. h and PastPerfect Online will build a fully searchable collections based Web site Features include Google search indexing visitor search statistics visitor feedback forms and design customization tools Demo Sandbox Yes available as a free download from our Website Available Sustainability Large client base Support for old versions of software Example Users 6 200 museum clients See http www museumsoftware com client_list htm Unique Features PastPerfect encompasses both collections and contacts management Itis an affordable and comprehensive software package that is easy to install maintain and use Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC ezMARC Upgrade provides a customizable data map to import MARC records into PastPerfect catalogs Exports EAD No but is being considered for a future version Exports Dublin Core Yes Dublin Core XML Exports MODS No PastPerfect enables user to export PastPerfect fields to XML Exports METS No Exports MADS No Batch Exports EAD No Batch Exports MARC Batch Export Tab Delimited Files Imports EAD Not directly Imports MARC ezMARC Upgrade see above Imports Tab Delimited Yes Files CSV Imports Digital Image Files The Multi Media Upgrade enables users to attach digital images and link multimedia files to records Import Accession Data PastPerfect users may import Accession Objec
98. h a magnifying glass but the zoom tool on the photo interface is really powerful The same goes for oral histories All of the audio files are digital so you can catalog separate pieces of a whole oral history and jump to that part The level of cataloging lets you get to minute detail It s really easy to use Authority control is pretty good You can connect to any sort of authority We re connected to the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus and it s pretty good If you can t find something or if it doesn t fit you can create your own authority In that way it s nice because it s customizable It s flexible
99. heir collections sometimes through the purchase of an additional module However some archives already have a mechanism for publishing their finding aids on the Web so they may prefer software that enables them to easily export finding aids that they can then import into their existing Web publication sys tem Since most browsers now provide support for XML archives could simply upload their EAD files to a Web server include a call out to an XSLT stylesheet at the top of each file for the purposes of presentation and display their finding aids without too much effort Projects such as the EAD Cookbook have made stylesheets freely available Although this simple approach does not offer so phisticated searching and other features it enables ar chives to publish their finding aids online at minimal cost If archival management software does enable publishing archival collections online archives should consider the quality and customizability of the end user interface Does it provide search and browse functions Can users run advanced searches Does it offer additional features such as stored searches Is the design clean and simple to navigate Can it be easily customized to reflect the unique identity of the archive Does the interface meet accessibil ity standards Can it be translated into other languages Support for linking to digital objects In addition to providing access to archival collections ar chives may wish to make av
100. hest level of arrangement for government records Whereas for private or non government records like that in New Orleans or Rhode Island or our European clients they engage the fonds or collection level as the highest level of arrangement Key to this flexible approach is that M2A enables the user to decide the most appropriate level of classification to be applied The M2A and MINISIS toolkit encourage the user to adapt the application to meet their specific needs The entire system can be modified to fit and add any features functions and processes required Item level Description Yes Support for Yes In built hierarchical structures to handle multilevel Hierarchical description Description Dynamically Generate Yes EAD Finding Aids Publish Finding Aids Yes Online Administrative Functions User Permissions Yes user profiles Support for Yes OAI Harvesting Syndication Customization Yes 100 customization of the application through the use of the Configuration SMA toolkit Spell Check No Bug Reporting Yes Interoperability with Yes Depends on the product but most products can be linked via Digital Repository ODBC XML or similar protocols and tools Systems User Interface Web Publishing Yes Browse Yes Lisa Spiro 80 Search Yes Web enabled searching over all databases including federated searching Advanced Se
101. hival description and arrangement Likewise the ARL Task Force proposes minimal processing suggesting that it is better to provide some level of access to all materials than to provide comprehensive ac cess to some materials and no access at all to others Jones 2003 5 This access can be provided through the Online Public Access Catalog OPAC EAD finding aids digital collections or databases Indeed providing electronic access is crucial to making hidden collections more visible since in creasingly materials that are electronically inaccessible are simply not used Jones 2003 5 Thus the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control recommends that archives make finding aids accessible via online catalogs and available on the Internet streamline cataloging and encourage inter institutional collaboration for sharing metadata records and authority records for rare and unique materials 2008 23 24 Among the criteria that archives and special collections should consider in determining how to process each collection are size condition significance and perhaps most important the needs of researchers Archives should keep in mind that archival descriptions may be part of distributed federated catalogs so they should adhere to best practices to ensure consistency of data The ARL Task Force recognizes that some Archival Management Software 3 collections may require more deta
102. hival management systems 1 EAD Authoring According to a 2006 study by Chris Prom archivists use a variety of tools to create descriptive records favoring simple tools Eighty two percent use word processors 55 library catalog software 34 custom databases 31 text or HTML editors 22 XML editors and 14 digital library software Prom 2008 21 Archives using XML editors typically have a larger backlog 58 of the collection than those using word processors 37 leading Prom to suggest that a t least some of our backlog problems seem attributable to the adoption of complex tools and methodologies 2008 22 However these institutions may have had larger backlogs to begin with Prom found a low adoption rate of MARC and EAD access to only an average of 37 percent of collections is provided through MARC 13 percent through EAD 2008 23 24 Often archives use a mix of methods to create finding aids For instance UC Berkeley converted legacy finding aids to EAD through a multifaceted approach entering basic descriptive information into Web templates http www cdlib org inside projects oac toolkit template s and employing WordPerfect to create the initial hierarchy for the collection It then converted the WordPerfect files to EAD using macros and Perl scripts http www cdlib org inside projects oac toolkit XML editors were primarily used as reference tool s since i t is far
103. hival tool study Archives Hub 2008 Archives Hub Creating and Managing Spokes Available at http www archiveshub ac uk arch spokesnew shtml Archivists Toolkit 2008 Features Matrix Archivists Toolkit Archon and PastPerfect Available at http www archiviststoolkit org Comparison_of Archival Management Software 3 paf Archon October 2008 Archon Facilitating Access to Special Collections Project Update Available at www archon org ArchonUpdateOct2008 pdf Association of Research Libraries Special Collections Task Force 2006 Special Collections Task Force Final Status Report Washington D C Association of Research Libraries Available at http www arl org rtl speccoll spcolltf status0706 shtml Baron Robert 1991 Choosing Museum Collection Management Software The Systems Analysis Available at http www studiolo org MusComp STATEMNT htm Bentley Historical Library University of Michigan n d MS Word 2000 EAD Templates and Macros Available at http bentley umich edu EAD bhlfiles php Canadian Heritage Information Network 2003 Collections Management Software Review Available at http www chin gc ca English Collections_ Management S oftware_Review introduction html Canadian Heritage Information Network 2002 Collections Management Software Selection Last modified April 27 2002 Available at http www chin gc ca English Collections
104. iable and easy for day to day Lisa Spiro 108 Eloquent Archive Summary To understand how archivists use Eloquent Archive I conducted phone interviews with 4 archivists between May and July of 2008 To encourage complete honesty I promised anonymity to the interviewees I tried to capture the interviewees remarks as accurately as possible but I paraphrased and or condensed some comments Reasons for Selecting Eloquent We selected Eloquent back in 2000 when they were using GenCAT a DOS based system It s reasonably tailorable We can make it work for our particular needs rather than changing our practices to fit a system It has worked well At beginning none of the information was in an electronic format so we had to do a lot of data entry It moved from DOS system to Web based system a couple of years ago they did all of the migration for us T used Eloquent many years ago on another project and liked it at that time When I got the chance to buy software 10 or so years later I looked at other companies and once again Eloquent was the one I chose It was the one most likely to do the job One selling point the data conversion from our old system Filemaker to the new one was less expensive with Eloquent than with other vendors They delivered the converted data on time and with good results We also chose Eloquent because it is Web based I can log on anywhere at our facility We already had an Eloquent syst
105. ibing one resource at the same time They re working on that in the next release to merge different resource descriptions If you are working on a huge collection with several boxes it would be good to have people working on same collection at same time The exporting of EAD for AT is good the exporting of MARC is pretty good but not quite as granular as needs to be It would be nice to have something that mapped to Encoded Archival Context for name records There were a few minor buggy issues we had with the first version particularly with dragging things around but those seem to be gone now There are a few issues with this version where it seems to time out and lose data Someone was working on collection had the resource window open for half an hour and lost the data The Save functionality could be better so that you could save and still remain in the window Now we save a lot Td like the ability to rank collections track processing priorities states of collections preservation level of arrangement and description In general I think the connection between the accessioning and resource modules could be a little stronger The problem with the import of legacy EAD is probably our biggest hurdle There are lots of places to put information in and you want to fill in every blank You have to stop yourself from doing that and make sure that you re entering what you need to and what s necessary to
106. iled description than others and that any decision will involve trade offs As one drafter of the ARL Task Force Report observed Collection level cataloging is potentially dangerous because if not done right it will merely convert materials from unprocessed to hidden Jones 2003 9 10 Institutions have devised different approaches to hidden col lections based on the nature of their collections and the re sources available Through the University of Chicago s An drew W Mellon Foundation funded Uncovering New Chi cago Archives Project UNCAP graduate students are working with scholars and cultural heritage professionals to catalog hidden collections housed at a local library and mu seum Shreyer 2007 For the museum collection they are us ing item level cataloging whereas they are using more standard archival practices with the library collection In ad dition a professional archivist is using minimal processing techniques to process ajazz collection and a contemporary poetry collection housed at the university Whereas the stu dents are producing detailed descriptions the archivist is taking a more stripped down approach allowing Chicago to test the effectiveness of each model Similarly to reduce ar chival backlogs and provide research experiences for graduate students the University of California Los Angeles UCLA launched the Center for Primary Research and Training CFPRT which pairs grad
107. iling this report I relied on the following sources e Archival management system reviews produced by other groups including Fondren Library s Woodson Research Center 2008 Archivists Toolkit 2008 the International Council on Archives Lake Loiselle and Wall 2003 the International Council on Archives Access to Memory ICA AtoM Mugie 2008 and the Canadian Heritage Information Network CHIN 2003 These reviews tend to focus on available features rather than performance Information provided by software developers and vendors on their Web sites and through other documentation e Phone interviews with users and developers of archival management systems By talking to users of different archival management systems I was able to get a detailed view of their strengths and weaknesses Unfortunately I was able to arrange interviews only with users of AT Archon Cuadra STAR Archives CollectiveAccess and Eloquent so the analysis of the other software is based on what the developers say about it rather than on user experience I also spoke and or corresponded with representatives from AT Archon Cuadra STAR CollectiveAccess ICA AToM Minisis Adlib CALM PastPerfect and Eloquent I briefly experimented with demo versions of CollectiveAccess Archon and AT and I saw demos of Cuadra STAR and Eloquent gt http www pacsclsurvey org http www oclc org collectionanalysis default htm http blogs
108. ility of Data Yes Model Item level Description Yes Reorganize Yes Reorganize hierarchies as required Hierarchies Lisa Spiro 66 Dynamically Generate Yes EAD Finding Aids Publish Finding Aids Yes Online Administrative Functions User Permissions Yes Support for No Harvesting Syndication Customization Yes Configuration Spell Check Yes Bug Reporting Yes Customers are encouraged to report problems to Customer Support Problems are addressed as they are discovered or reported and the customers affected by any particular problem are provided with either a fix or a workaround Interoperability with STAR includes APIs that allow other software programs to Digital Repository communicate with STAR Systems User Interface Web Publishing Yes Web based public interface that allows for searching within and across collections Browse Yes Search Yes Search within or across collections Advanced Search Yes Customizable Yes Advanced searching allows the use of explicit Boolean operators set combinations date ranging and field selection In addition both the look and the functionality of the Web module can be customized in many different ways Built in Help Yes Link to Images and Yes Other Files Easy Data Entry Yes Other Features e Manage your inventory e Track items in circulation e Includes a
109. ingle element create online presentations of finding aids and provide both search and structured browsing It is a plug in to Eclipse an open source Java development platform B Word processing templates A number of archives use or have used word processing software such as Microsoft Word WordPerfect or Open Office to create preliminary finding aids In some cases organi zations have created templates that make it easy to enter standard archival information Often they also use macros or scripts to aid in the conversion to EAD For example Yale has experimented with Open Office as tool for EAD creation Yale University Library 2003 the Bentley Library at the University of Michigan has developed macros to convert Word files to EAD XML Bentley Historical Library n d and the Utah State Archives used WordPerfect to create container lists Utah State Archives 2002 Similarly the Utah State Archives produces container lists using Excel and MailMerge Perkes 2008 C Forms By using forms to produce finding aids archives can speed their creation and ensure greater consistency Forms can be Web based or desktop based Berkeley Web Template CGI script is a customizable cgi driven Web application that generates a user defined HTML form template and then generates markup using 2 See http mextoolset wiki sourceforge net and http www bundesarchiv de daofind en D Lisa Spiro 22 the values filled in by
110. ionary Bug Reporting Yes covered with annual maintenance fee Interoperability with No but appropriate interface can be easily tailored for most digital Digital Repository repositories Systems User Interface Web Publishing Yes Browse Yes Search Yes Advanced Search Can save searches e Precision searches with authorized terms and Boolean logic e Searching the database plots the locations on Google Maps Clicking points on the map presents detail and images from your database Customizable Yes Full control over look and feel of Web pages Lisa Spiro 70 Built in Help Yes Context sensitive online help Link to Images and Yes Other Files Easy Data Entry Yes through Web forms Other Features e Print barcodes and labels in PDF format e Record research requests Highlight entered search terms in PDFs when they are returned as search results Generate entire Websites on the fly using your archival descriptions Archival Management Software 71 ICA AToM 1 2 Home Page http ica atom org Developer Project Partners e The International Council on Archives ICA e Artefactual Systems Inc e The Dutch Archiefschool Research Institute e Alouette Canada Project Funders e United Arab Emirates Center for Documentation and Research e Dutch Archiefschool Research Institute e French Archives Directorate e UNESCO Inf
111. is online researchers have to look in several places to find relevant resources searching MARC records in WorldCat MARC and EAD records in ArchiveGrid National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections NUCMC records in Archives USA EAD finding aids aggregated in regional repositories such as Online Archive of California and TARO and or finding aids provided through the Web sites of particular archives In order to facilitate discovery of archival resources the CLIR Hidden Collections Program aims to provide a federated catalog drawing from multiple repositories As the 2008 program description states The records and descriptions obtained through this effort will be accessible through the Internet and the Web enabling the federation of disparate local cataloging entries with tools to aggregate this information by topic and theme Archivists whom I interviewed recognize the value of aggregating information from multiple repositories As one interviewee noted We just have to federate there really isn t a reason to stop at the stage of putting things on the Web The point of EAD was not to put finding aids online but to share to get everyone together to do things across a collection If we don t make the step forward to sharing we might as well be using HTML However federating archival descriptions poses some significant challenges For one thing an appropriate technical infrastructure needs to be developed perhaps l
112. ity to the interviewees I tried to capture the interviewees remarks as accurately as possible but I paraphrased and or condensed some comments Reasons for Selecting Archon The greater efficiency of using Archon as an EAD authoring platform people creating finding aids no longer have to do it by hand and learn the EAD elements It is not as complicated as other systems Data is in standard formats that can be migrated into other systems should the need arise We needed some sort of database that we could deliver to researchers for searching our collections We wanted to have something that could go on the Web Archon is free and pretty easy to implement without much IT intervention It gave us a quick and easy way to put collections on online let patrons search them and see everything we had instead of having to search finding aids individually We needed something easy to implement for Web delivery of finding aids It s open source People at our library are passionate about open source They are unhappy about contracts for our OPAC Open source leaves us options if the user community is not active to continue the development ourselves The interface is easy to use which is important since students would be doing a lot of the data entry There is a built in Web interface that is an attractive easy to use out of the box solution We didn t have to fight over what the system would be Our systems peo
113. ivists The terminology and hierarchy are familiar scope content biographical historical note all the elements that you would put into finding aid template is there for EAD They ll take your legacy finding aids and put them in for you I have only generated one EAD file It was an easy one step process but I don t know what to do with it once I have it T use the accessioning function which is fabulous and has so many different things to use We don t use all of the features Let s say you have a collection that people like to cite from and you need to give permission you can add in every time something is cited and where You could log donations provide contact info for the donor and his daughter and then switch her to the main contact if he dies The sky is the limit there so many pieces we haven t used If you move the record from accession to processed you can move things over easily You can even wait to make it live and flag it for release They ve thought of a lot You can maintain and enhance levels of description from collection to item You can set up and maintain repository data do inventory control manage circulation and loans and maintain name authorities and the administrative interface You can set accessions review and delete records Inside the collection level descriptions there are all kinds of stuff Once you figure it out it is pretty easy You can manage finding aids you can flag
114. l Architecture Client server application runs as a Windows Service Uses a proprietary database CalmView public access module based on NET APSX Backup Restore Backup to fit local customer standards Restore based on restoring Utility database files from last backup Maturity Calm products have been available for 12 years with over 300 installations across the United Kingdom and Europe Hosting Available Yes Demo Sandbox Yes Available Archival Management Software 59 Sustainability Calm has a very large and active user community and development is based on a user consensus approach Calm conforms to current approved international standards including ISAD G ISAAR EAD and OAI It is our policy to conform to standards once they are ratified There is an optional ESCROW agreement available Example Users U K National Archives of Scotland Wellcome Library London School of Economics and Political Science The British Postal Museum and Archive Hampshire Record Office The National Gallery Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Transport for London Other National Archive of Portugal Lisbon Shell Family Archives Centre the Netherlands Unique Features Calm is a modular system designed to provide a full range of Collection Management functions including Accessions Loans In Depositor Owner Lender Catalogue Authority Files Conservati
115. le and dynamic tree structure for managing collection hierarchy Hierarchy levels are not hard coded which allows customers flexibility to define their own collection structures Dynamically Generate EAD Finding Aids Yes Publish Finding Aids Online Yes using CalmView public access module Administrative Functio ns User Permissions Yes Support for Harvesting Syndication Yes OAI repository and harvester module available Customization Configuration Yes Record relationships can be viewed through a unique graphical tree browser Fields are repeatable unless functionally undesirable and can contain up to 64 000 characters of searchable text per field record templates can be modified but also unusually individual records of the same type can have fields added or removed A standard utility called DS Admin allows the system administrator to vary record types field labels authority fields picklists and many other functions without jeopardizing a common upgrade path All field properties width position label font picklist mandatory serial number bib1 MARC XML attributes etc are user defined using DS Admin Spell Check Yes provided as standard Bug Reporting Yes through support channels and resolved through standard service level agreements Interoperability with Digital Repository Systems Yes with external systems through API XML broker or exposed URL I
116. lib berkeley edu bancsurvey php 2008 06 02 bancroft_surv ey_project http www columbia edu cu lweb services preservation surveyTools html See also Collections Trust 2008 and Stevens 2008 1 Interviews were conducted between May and July 2008 The names of interviewees are kept anonymous I tried to represent what interviewees said as accurately as possible but occasionally quotations contain paraphrases or supplied words Archival Management Software 9 To ensure accuracy and fairness developers and vendors were given the opportunity to respond to user comments and to the features matrices that I developed see Appendixes 2 4 5 How to Select Archival Management Software With an increasing number of options for archival manage ment software archivists may feel overwhelmed Fortunately they can adopt sound rational processes for selecting soft ware The Canadian Heritage Information Network CHIN offers both a detailed review and an online course focused on selecting collection management software which is closely related to archival management software CHIN 2003 While collection management systems typically support cataloging managing and making available archival museum and private collections archival management systems include many of these features but focus on the particular needs of archives such as archival description and conformance to archival standards Rather than replicate that work I will provi
117. llows greater flexibility with output Model Supports multilevel description according to standard archival practice Drag and drop component rearrangement tool Item level Description Conditionally Reorganize To reorder component records simply select the component you Hierarchies wish to move and drag it up or down in the hierarchy releasing the mouse button where you wish to place the component Dynamically Generate EAD Finding Aids Yes Publish Finding Aids Online No Administrative Functions User Permissions Yes five levels of user permission from beginning data entry staff to superuser Support for No Harvesting Syndication of Content Customization Yes Can customize field labels screen browse view note fields Configuration search fields reports data formats right mouse functions and drag and drop Can create user defined fields e g date Boolean text integer Spell Check No Bug Reporting Yes Interoperability with Planned for Phase 2 Digital Repository Systems User Interface Web Publishing No Browse Yes Search Yes Provides search filters Can search Name Subject Accession and Resource records Component level search results Advanced Search For accession and resource records the Search Editor also provides the ability to retrieve records by searching for related information This includes names creators sourc
118. ly if you have Eloquent do the work for you When we first installed it we had a clerical person who had a difficult time understanding the hierarchical structure and the language because she didn t have an archives background I think that paraprofessionals and grad students would be OK but the system does presume that you know archives somewhat Ease of Installation e It was easy to install it took less than an hour As for maintenance there has been basically none The only problem we have is that from time to time the system hangs and we have to Archival Management Software 109 restart it We can t figure out what causes it It hasn t been a big enough problem yet that we ve invested time in solving it e They ve been very supportive throughout the entire process from migration to installation they worked with us very closely and slowed down to my speed All in all I don t think it was that difficult The timelines we initially set were probably not as realistic as they should have been They were very willing to work with us All in all it was a smooth transition Ease of Customization One other archivists and I are the administrators and so we can do the tailoring for ourselves We create our screens so that they fit archival standards and what our users are used to We have done some customizing We did purchase the architect component so that we can do some stuff here When we use it we usu
119. m is the leading Archives management system in the UK DS has worked for many years with specialists to develop our Calm products comprehensive and integrated systems suited to diverse organizational needs Calm makes it easy to manage data across the heritage sector All relevant standards are supported seamlessly within one system Development in partnership with customers ensures that Calm reflects current and changing professional standards DS is committed to providing mechanisms that allow customers to work with others in similar and cross sectoral areas License Commercial Purchasing Cost Depends on number of staff clients and modules purchased Maintenance Cost 25 of software license cost This includes free updates and upgrades to all purchased modules User Support e Help desk e User group listserv e Online manual Training Yes customized to user requirements System Requirements Server specification Windows 2000 2003 2008 Server Standard Edition Net 2 0 IIS 6 or higher for CalmView Web module TCP IP networking RAM 2Gb HDD 1 5Mb per 1000 text records space required for other media files RAID and backup to suit customer standards Calm will run in a VM Server environment Client specification 2000 Pro XP pro Vista Business or Ultimate RAM 512Mb minimum HDD 10Mb Display currently 800x600 but will increase to 1024x768 minimum for next release Technica
120. mail a friend who is using it with questions In talking to other folks who are looking at it people have their eyes open Lisa Spiro 102 about it the good the bad and the continual development I ve found other users responsive to needs It s good It s basically three guys at UIUC They respond quickly to e mails but it s not like a big commercial project they want input for ways to improve Archon I had a phone meeting with them on some problems Strengths Responsiveness of developers An early adopter commented that everything she had complained about was fixed in later releases of the software Flexibility in working with different kinds of data Archon takes any kind of media sound images even a link to something else Makes capturing archival data more efficient With the new accessions module archivists can enter data into the system once and use it to generate multiple outputs One archivist who hasn t used the accessions module yet is excited that it will enable the archive to import standard data from an Access database and manage that data more efficiently Through the digital library module archives can provide access to digitized versions of the objects described in finding aids which researchers have really liked Web publishing capabilities All the data entered into Archon is immediately available online As you enter data it s accessible to people live unless you ask that it not be made publicly
121. me organizations and may not provide the flexibility that archivists require Several archivists re ported difficulty importing existing EAD data into systems such as Archon and AT a problem due in part to the flexibility of EAD and the resulting variability of finding aids Although archival management systems typically can be customized and feature user defined fields they do enforce a certain consistency and workflow which frustrates archivists who have an established way of working As one archivist stated Archon and Archivists Toolkit are great but it means that someone else has done the thinking for you about the workflow Homegrown approaches may be more flexible and may better reflect the archive s own workflow Furthermore some archivists argue that putting archival description into a database structure is reductive and oversimplifies the process of producing a finding aid In the process of encoding a finding aid archivists better understand the texture structure and contents of the document Also XML and word processing editors provide greater flexibility than databases As an archivist noted If we are doing rear ranging while we re going along we can t shift things around very easily if we re using a database We have parts of finding aids that we can shift around in Word The tool has to combine flexibility with rigor Other archivists emphasize the importance of adhering to standards to facili
122. mproves description workflow and decreases need for training in XML and encoding de Catanzaro Thompson and Woynowski 2007 However archivists noted that it can be difficult to import existing finding aids and make AT accommodate existing workflows AT does not yet provide Web publishing capabilities CollectiveAccess http www CollectiveAccess org The recent recipient of a Mellon Collaborative Technol ogy Grant CollectiveAccess allows museums and ar chives to manage their collections and provide rich on line access to them CollectiveAccess is a Web based tool built on PHP and my SQL so it is cross platform According to its developer Seth Kaufman its chief advantages are that it e is free e is customizable e has a flexible data model that accommo dates many types of collections and sup ports different data standards and con trolled vocabularies Lisa Spiro 26 e provides robust support for multimedia in cluding images audio video and text is capable of automatic conversion of audio files to MP3 and video files to flash format can zoom and pan images and enables time based cataloging of media files and e has a Web based structure that facilitates distributed cataloging and enables admin istrative users to enter metadata and search collections online Designed more as a collection management than ar chival management system CollectiveAccess does not yet provide support for exporting EAD or
123. ms Office of Government Commerce 2002 3 Although some worry about the sustainability of open source projects other de velopers can maintain and enhance the code should the original developer abandon the project indeed as Stuart Yeates from the JISC s OSS Watch argues Sustainability is an issue for proprietary software as much as for open source software Smart 2005 Many believe that open source software is actually more secure than proprietary software since open source applications can be scrutinized and verified by many eyes and security issues can be resolved quickly Whitlock 2001 Some institutions however lack the technical staff to im plement open source software Others may oppose it be cause of they fear security risks or high maintenance costs Implementing open source software can be challenging particularly if no support is available or if support struc tures vanish With commercial software customers can contact the vendor for training assistance in importing data or other services with open source software archives often rely on the community for help Sometimes open source projects are abandoned before reaching fruition Lakhan and Jhunjhunwala 2008 Documentation of open source applications can be weak Office of Government Archival Management Software 13 Commerce 2002 4 Although open source software typically is available without licensing fees significant costs can result from implem
124. n 3 Arrangement Definition Organizing archival collections in accordance with their original order and provenance Documentation produced e Processing plan Documents current condition of collection and proposed arrangement e Box folder form Describes labels used to be used for the components of a collection e Location record Documents where the collection is housed Shelf list Describes archive s holdings according to their physical organization used by archivists in locating materials Archival Management Software 39 4 Description Definition A finding aid that outlines the arrangement of the collection and elucidates its research value This finding aid enables users to determine what a collection contains helps archives locate materials and acts as a record of deposit for donors Documentation produced e Finding aid A description of records that gives the repository physical and intellectual control over the materials and that assists users to gain access to and understand the materials The finding aid can be delivered in several formats including a print document EAD encoded file and Web page The finding aid typically contains information about the collection including acquisition and processing provenance scope including size subject and media organization and arrangement and an inventory of the series and folders Tools for producing finding aids include word processors spreadsheet p
125. n of branches across levels and record groups e Customizable e Covers all aspects of Archival Automation including o Accessions Space Audit Mgt Appraisals Processing Description 0000 Lisa Spiro 78 Authorities Client Registration Order Tracking Request processes Reproduction management DAMS Conservation Treatment Enquiries Repository Met Vital Statistics Media management from image text video and audio and compliance with z39 87 Many reports including automatic creation of Finding Aids linking display of media files and EAD and 00000000 Oo MARC Import and Export Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC Yes Exports EAD Yes MINISIS also ensured that the application is EAD compliant for data transfer Exports Dublin Core Yes Exports MODS Yes Exports METS Yes Exports MADS Yes Many American clients have the XML map Batch Exports EAD Yes Batch Exports MARC Yes Batch Export Tab Yes Delimited Files Imports EAD Yes Imports MARC Yes Imports Tab Delimited Yes Files CSV Imports Digital Image Yes Files Import Accession Data Yes Batch Import EAD Yes Batch Import MARC Yes Batch Import CSV Yes Collection Management Features Appraisals Yes Accessions Yes Create Deeds of Gift Yes Prioritize Processing Yes Order Track Donors Yes Project Management MINISIS provides an event handler tool that
126. n t even imagine we needed T like being able to make changes and immediately post them to the Internet I like the immediacy of it If someone discovers a typo we can immediately make the change and post it We can digitize something and immediately attach that file to its description I know a lot of folks use Content DM but Eloquent allows us to attach images immediately to descriptive record Everything is in a single system We can link any descriptive item to a digital image PDF mov file or whatever and have it displayed on the Web immediately Reference requests have more than doubled as a result which is something we re struggling with now because we re short staffed It s definitely improved our Web presence Right now Eloquent is doing what we need it to do They met me where I was at and they really slowed down the process so that I could get on board They worked with us closely from the data mapping to migrating the data to implementing the software Merv Richter himself came down to do the training We walked through all of the screens and all of the configurations That made for a well rounded experience from beginning Eloquent s Response to User Feedback In response to user comments Eloquent s president Merv Richter gave the following slightly edited response Some of the negative comments may have come from customers migrating from the old DOS version of the Eloquent GENCAT product Applications
127. n this area allow the Archon administrator to view and edit information related to researcher accounts carts and logins Generate Reports No Track Repository No Statistics Resource Description Authority Control Yes e Develop creator authorities and controlled subject lists and link them to collections and digital objects e Create and edit creator and subject authority records which may be linked to classifications collections or digital objects Changes made to authority records will automatically propagate to associated collections or digital objects Controlled Yes Vocabulary Compliance to EAD MARC DACS Archival Standards Data Validation 2 Templating Default Yes Templates control the particular data elements that appear on a Fields particular page They are not intended to control display properties such as layout colors and fonts Support for Digital Yes Upload digital objects electronic records or link archival Media descriptions to external URLs Internationalization Yes Currently offers Spanish and English interfaces French and Italian being considered Flexibility of Data e Define repository level information such as address Model contact information and overall arrangement scheme Lisa Spiro 56 e Define record groups or other classifications e Archon s data model can accommodate any organizational hierarchy Item l
128. nd corporations e Place name authority A hierarchical authority list for geographic place names Supports an unlimited number of independent place hierarchies enabling side by side usage of Lisa Spiro 84 established authorities such as the Getty TGN and self built authorities for local areas e Occurrences authority A flexible authority for things that are not entities or geographic place names The occurrences authority is a sort of construction kit for non hierarchical authorities You may define any number of occurrence types with each type manifesting itself in the system as a distinct authority This allows the creation of any number of very specific authority lists Typical applications of occurrences are to support authorities for film productions expeditions exhibitions and events such as wars storms elections etc but any flat authority list can be implemented using occurrences e Collections authority An authority list of collections into which catalogued objects are organized Each collection can have contextual information that may be displayed to end users For some users this may be used to model significant historical collection structures for others it may prove to be a useful organizational tool Controlled Vocabulary An unlimited number of hierarchical controlled vocabularies may be loaded into the system and used side by side for cataloguing Management tools allow selected users
129. nd display audio video MS Word documents Excel spreadsheets PDFs and URL Web links to each catalog record Internationalization Dates formats may be set in General Information UK clients can set PP for currency and other terminology changes Flexibility of Data Partial 22 custom fields in each catalog Can use different authority Model files for different catalogs Archives Photos Objects Library Item level Description Yes Support for Yes multilevel linking in Archives Hierarchical Description Dynamically Generate No EAD Finding Aids Publish Finding Aids Users can create a finding aid report that may be created in HTML Online as with all reports Reports may be printed to MS Word PDF and Plain Text as well as to a printer Administrative Functions User Permissions Yes Support for No Harvesting Syndication Customization A number of functions are customizable including all reports Configuration browse screens function keys There are 22 custom fields per catalog Spell Check Yes Bug Reporting Not built in but generally users e mail or call with problems Archival Management Software 91 Interoperability with No Digital Repository Systems User Interface Web Publishing With Virtual Exhibit PastPerfect users may create keyword searchable HTML Web pages that highlight collections through virtual exhibits http www museumso
130. ndors and developers an opportunity to edit the matrix or recommend revisions All of them did so Training courses Remote access training On site training ADLIB ARCHIVE 6 3 0 Home Page http www adlibsoft com Developer Adlib Information Systems a company based in the Netherlands Developer s Intended specifically for managing collections in archives and Description records offices Adlib Archive has been designed and developed by Adlib Information Systems and is based on many years of experience in the collection management field Adlib Archive offers comprehensive functionality and interfaces for professional archive management Standard features include Accessions and accruals hierarchical catalogue structure to ISAD G and authority records to ISAAR CPF standards published document cataloguing image linking and retrieval capabilities and interfaces to external files such as Word or Excel documents Web pages etc License Commercial Purchasing Cost Depends on number of users and database used Maintenance Cost 15 of the license per year User Support e Web site e Help desk User manual e User group Remote assistance support Training e Online tutorial System Requirements Adlib application Windows 2000 or later operating system 512MB of RAM for Windows 2000 or Windows XP 1GB of RAM for Windows Vista The Adlib Internet Server module runs on a Windows Server If you want to tak
131. ntegrated digital repository module available with next release User Interface Web Publishing Yes CalmView is the new public access module for Calm and allows any data and or images stored in a Calm database to be searched locally or remotely intranet or Internet through a Web browser It is fully parameterized and allows local configuration to control search options e g keyword Google style simple search wildcard screen displays visible hidden fields search filters data security access to images and electronic documents links to other URLs hierarchical browsing bookmarking image watermarking plus showcase image gallery what s new features Browse Yes Search Calm is a structured full text retrieval system and has search features including any text field specific wildcard proximity keyword date parser Boolean widen narrow exclude and or not synonym etc All fields or combinations of fields may be searched unless functionally undesirable All words are indexed automatically unless set as a stopword All fields are indexed automatically unless set as unindexed by the administrator Advanced Search Yes customizable support for intelligent date searching synonym wild card etc Lisa Spiro 62 Customizable Yes CalmView has out of the box theming skinning Calm application has flexible DS Admin module Built in Help Yes Link to Imag
132. o encode a 100 page finding aid using standard XML markup tools on top of the time needed to actually write the collection description and develop a general box listing of its content Prom et al 2007 159 XML and customizable text editors include 1 XMetaL Extensible collaborative commercial soft ware for authoring XML To provide a more user friendly interface for creating and editing finding aids Yale University has developed a finding aids authoring tool layered over XMetaL Yale s FACT tool customizes XMetaL to provide a word processing view of finding aids for staff who didn t want to work with the XML elements Archives such as the University of Minnesota have developed tips for using XMetaL to author EAD 2 Oxygen Easy to use commercial cross platform XML editor providing the tools for XML authoring XML conversion XML Schema DTD Relax NG and Schematron development XPath XSLT etc Several archives and consortia including Northwest Digital Archives provide documentation for using Oxygen to create EAD 3 NoteTab A free or inexpensive text editor Several projects including NC Echo Virginia Heritage and the EAD Cookbook have created clipbook libraries for NoteTab that facilitate the creation of EAD Ac cording to a recent report by the Florida Center for Li brary Automation FCLA the existing customizable NoteTab templates maintained by FCLA have been very help
133. o that That s another feature that s nice on the descriptive end Archival Management Software 93 This is the first thing I ve seen since AIMS in the mid 1990s that links accessions to collections and allows you to search accessions easily for stuff that s unprocessed One of the features in upcoming releases is the user tracking as well Once we fully implement AT we ll be able to eliminate other resources especially InMagic which probably won t be supported on future operating systems I think it will reduce descriptive overhead for archives We had been looking for a management tool that would help us do some of the basic functions of an archive such as managing our accessions having a name authority and subject and having some way of integrating finding aids into one tool We ve really been testing AT ever since learning about it We ve implemented parts of it fully especially the accessions module We are looking at or getting to point of implementing the authority module fully We are still hesitating on the resource module the place where we would import legacy EAD documents and create new EAD documents right in AT export them run them through our stylesheet we re still testing that We re hesitating because our legacy EAD documents are so diverse and weird We have tested importing legacy docs and have seen what they come out like ATis doing a lot better now with importing with 1 1 so we re looking at goin
134. ollections Committee Washington D C Association of Research Libraries Available at http www arl org rtl speccoll spcollres Lisa Spiro 36 Perkes Elizabeth 2008 Creating Container Lists Using Excel and Word Merge Options Available at http archives state ut us containerlist containerlist html Prom Christopher 2007 Optimum Access A Survey of Processing in College and University Archives Draft of chapter that later appeared in Christopher J Prom and Ellen D Swain eds College and University Archives Readings in Theory and Practice Chicago Society of American Archivists 2008 Draft available at http web library uiuc edu ahx workpap ChapterEight Prom pdf Prom Christopher J and Thomas G Habing 2002 Using the Open Archives Initiative protocols with EAD In Proceedings of the 2nd Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 171 180 New York Association for Computing Machinery Prom Christopher J Christopher A Rishel Scott W Schwartz and Kyle J Fox 2007 A Unified Platform for Archival Description and Access In Proceedings of the 7th ACM IEEE CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 157 166 Vancouver BC Canada Association for Computing Machinery Available at http portal acm org citation cfm doid 1255175 1255205 Shreyer Alice 2007 University of Chicago Explores Library Faculty Partnerships in Uncovering Hidden Collections ARL A Bimonthly Report 251 April
135. on Enquiries Productions Loans Out Movement Control Condition Check User Management Unique features include Dynamic collection hierarchy display through tree view Date parser for searching nonspecific dates Flexible staff client GUI What is GUI Support for messy data schemas Archives and Museums standards integrated into one application without compromise e Can be translated into other languages including database commands Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC Yes can be mapped Exports EAD Yes Exports Dublin Core Yes can be mapped Exports MODS No Exports METS No Exports MADS No Batch Exports EAD Yes Batch Exports MARC Yes Lisa Spiro 60 Batch Export Tab Yes Delimited Files Imports EAD Yes Imports MARC Yes Imports Tab Delimited Yes Files CSV Imports Digital Image Yes Further integration in next release with implementation of new Files digital repository module Import Accession Data Yes Batch Import EAD Yes Batch Import MARC Yes Batch Import CSV Yes Collection Management Features Appraisals Yes Accessions Yes Create Deeds of Gift Yes Prioritize Processing Yes Order Track Donors Yes Project Management No Record Condition Yes Conservation Manage Locations Yes Has a locations database for stock check and collections management Manage
136. on would be a good choice if you re a small institution without any Web finding aids and you have students and volunteers The great thing about Archon is that Lisa Spiro 100 anyone can do it with 30 minutes of training Scanning techs can cut and paste from Word into Archon I might need to make sure that the intellectual structure is right but it basically is easy to produce and go straight to Web You can make changes really easy with EAD you have to change the file and re upload Installation and Maintenance Installation of Archon is straightforward but you may have difficulty upgrading it if you have customized your local installation We did an upgrade 3 weeks ago and it was done in 15 minutes There were a couple of hiccups but it was smooth overall Earlier problems were to be expected with a 1 0 release and we could work around them Ease of Customization You can enter local information easily If you want to change the layout of your Archon site e g move around the standard elements on the Web page you need to work with a programmer or Web designer With the current version you can do a lot of customization through a CSS stylesheet One institution reported that the staff programmer didn t like the installer code and decided to do the upgrade manually since they had customized Archon Graphically we ve customized it all the same information is there but the fonts look different Our customizati
137. ons Some insti tutions were willing to share those solutions with the caveat that they reflected local practices More recently open source archival management systems such as Archon and AT and commercial solutions such as Cuadra STAR and MINISIS have offered other methods for creating archival description The promise of such systems is that archivists no longer have to hand code EAD but can cre ate it through entering information into database fields Rather than keeping archival data in multiple systems archivists can manage search and manipulate data through a single interface However such systems can also enforce a rigor that may challenge existing workflows and importing legacy data into them can be difficult Below I briefly describe a range of archival software packages that support exporting or publishing EAD and MARC or are likely to do so soon Since the focus of this report is archival management systems only brief descriptions of more spe cialized EAD authoring and publishing tools are provided and no information is offered about digital asset management systems institutional repository software integrated library Archival Management Software 19 systems or digital collections software Appendix 2 summa rizes the features of archival management systems in brief while Appendix 3 offers a detailed summary of these features Appendix 4 presents summaries of my interviews with current users of several leading arc
138. ons worked with the upgrade Examples of customizations Purdue William and Mary Weaknesses Archon may be best suited for institutions that don t have significant legacy EAD finding aids to import Several archivists reported that they had trouble importing complex finding aids into Archon or that they were aware of this being a problem for other institutions They were grateful that Archon staff attempted to help solve these problems but ultimately one archive will have to manually redo several big finding aids You can t enter formatting such as italics into Archon Archon is not Microsoft Word yet since there is no easy way to format Archon could provide better support for inputting special characters Unicode Archon doesn t yet support structuring bibliography lists It would be nice if you could take a box list and drag and drop it into Archon Tf all your finding aids are set up in the same way they can be easily imported into Archon but I know of no archive with that data It s not yet possible to have different collections in Archon that have different brands e g unique look and feel search functions There are potential usability problems with the default layout of finding aids Users may not know that they need to expand collapsed fields You can t control the presentation of data as much as you can with a custom Web site If you want to do anything fancy with the inte
139. or from an XML file structured according to the Accessions XML schema provided with the Toolkit Lisa Spiro 50 Imports Digital Image No Files Import Accession Yes Data Batch Import EAD Yes Target a directory containing the EAD files to be imported and import all EAD files in the directory Batch Import MARC _ No Batch Import CSV No Collection Management Features Appraisals No Has appraisal note Accessions Yes 40 fields Create Deeds of Gift No but you can link to a deed of gift Prioritize Processing Yes Order Track Donors Yes Create contact info for donor Project Management Sort of Include update by when on record Record Condition Yes Manage Locations Create Shelf List Yes Can batch add locations Manage Restricted Materials Yes Provides field for indicating restrictions on the material due to repository policy donor specifications legal requirements etc Manage Rights Yes Manage Loans and No Exhibits Deaccessioning Yes Reference Support No Generate Reports Yes Reports include accessions names subjects resources locations and repository profile Track Repository Statistics Yes Includes new fields for recording repository statistics per recommendations of Archival Metrics Project Fields include services provided staff size collection foci and reposito
140. orking speedily on making ICA AToM RAD compliant A developer noted that smart people are behind ICA AToM but it is currently focused on archival description so it might be limited for institutions that want fuller sup port for collection management and presentation Commercial Cuadra STAR Archives http www cuadra com products archives html Cuadra STAR Archives offers a number of features for managing and describing archival collections in cluding creating accessions tracking donors creating finding aids providing a Web interface to collections and exporting EAD and MARC Cuadra will host cus tomers data and provide assistance in importing ex isting data into the system CALM http www crxnet com page asp id 57 Calm for Archives developed by DS bills itself as the leading archival solution in the UK It has a cli ent server architecture and requires Windows Calm allows significant user customization and enables linking to digital objects It supports EAD and General International Standard Archival Description ISAD G and is compliant with International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies Persons and Families ISAAR CPF and National Council on Archives NCA name authority guidelines It offers OAI support with the provision of an additional module and rich searching options There is Lisa Spiro 28 a CalmView Web server module based on NET technology for Interne
141. ormation For All Programme World Bank Library and Archives of Development Developer s ICA AtoM is Web based archival description software that is based Description on International Council on Archives ICA standards AtoM is an acronym for Access to Memory ICA AtoM is multi lingual and supports multi repository collections License GPL v2 license Purchasing Cost Free Maintenance Cost Free User Support e User mailing list e Wiki e Forums e Manual Help function Training Yes including train the trainers package System Requirements Web server e g Apache or IIS Database e g MySQL SQL Server Postgres e Web browser for archivist end user Technical Architecture ICA AtoM comprises HTML pages served to a Web browser from a Web server Apache is used in development but ICA AtoM is also compatible with IIS e A database on a database server MySQL is used in development but ICA AtoM uses a database abstraction layer and is therefore also compatible with Postgres SQLite SQLServer Oracle etc PHP5 software code that manage requests and responses between the Web clients the application logic and the application content stored in the database The Symfony Web framework that organizes the component parts using object orientation and best practice Web design ICA AToM 1 2 is under development and is projected to be released in September 2009 Lisa Spiro 72
142. osted Web services Lisa Spiro 54 Demo Sandbox Yes http www archon org sandbox php Available Sustainability Currently supported by University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Won a Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration Will develop sustainability plan Example Users A substantial user community has emerged the software has been downloaded 900 times installed or upgraded over 600 times and at least 30 production applications currently running or planned William Mary Purdue Southern Illinois at Carbondale Florida Center for Automation San Diego State University of lowa Wheaton Bethel College Missouri Historical Society Unique Strengths 1 Makes it easy for archives to publish finding aids online 2 Optimized for Google so content is easy to discover 3 Ease of data entry 4 Digital library module supports linking digital files to finding aids 5 Low development overhead cost 6 Facilitates access to and reuse of archival information and digital objects 7 Encourages efficient descriptive practices Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC Yes Exports EAD Yes Exports Dublin Core No Exports MODS No Exports METS No Exports MADS No Batch Exports EAD Batch exporters planned for the next post 2 2 release Batch Exports MARC No Batch Export Tab No Delimited Files Imports EAD Yes Imports M
143. osted solutions Backup Restore Use the default backup utilities on your current server Utility Maturity The first release of the ADD M2A s first incarnation was developed in 1999 M2A is now into its fourth official release version Hosting Available Yes Demo Sandbox Yes You can download an old copy 1 to 2 years old off the Web Available site There is also a link to M2A Online the ASP version from the same page Numerous clients have put the MINISIS Web Interface MWI on top of their M2A to allow for an OPAC for the public and researches Sustainability MINISIS Inc has over 33 years of technological progression behind with over 45 million invested in it since the early 1970s It is protected with over 4 million of E amp O insurance and has a following of 1 000s of MINISIS users across 63 countries The first client to use MINISIS for archives was in 1977 and the last client to implement MINISIS was yesterday The user community growing continuously Example Users Province of Ontario Archives Province of Manitoba Saskatchewan Archives Board the City of Ottawa City of London U K State of Alaska the Historic New Orleans Collection Manuscripts Division Rhode Island Historical Society Historic New England Ford Motor Company and Center for Creative Photography See the www MINISISinc com Web site for demonstrations Unique Features e Multihierarchical display and manipulatio
144. play around with the user interface rather than having to rely on the company to make requested changes Indeed some institutions feel uncomfortable relying on anyone but themselves to curate their data What will happen to an archive s data if the company fails How will the archive retrieve that data and in what format Archives should also consider the annual costs of a hosted solution although hosting data locally also entails costs in hardware technical support licensing fees etc Commer cial vendors typically provide hosting services although some service bureaus will also host open source software for instance hosting is being planned for ICA AToM If organizations are considering a hosted solution because they fear the complexity of installing and maintaining software they should note that most archival management systems are designed to be easy to install and maintain Cost For many institutions cost is a key factor in determining what software to select The purchase cost for archival Lisa Spiro 14 management software can range from free for open source to hundreds of thousands of dollars for commer cial products with all the bells and whistles and licenses for many clients Even open source software entails sig nificant costs including hardware technical support and customization costs that also apply to commercial pro jects Along with the cost of the license archivists should factor in recurring costs
145. ple could do it but this is out of the box and we can just slap on our logo All four archivists agreed on this T have more confidence in the sustainability of Archon The University of Illinois developed Archon they re using it they ll keep supporting it for the long term even if they didn t have external funding This was an ideal tool for us because we had so little that was automated We wanted to get information into the system quickly using student labor Students were just inputting stuff into intuitive fields They didn t have to know EAD and DACS An archivist here focused on EAD selected Archon She felt that EAD is such complex work that she had to do everything herself If we used Archon which is simpler for someone without a lot of training to get started in it would free her from having to tag everything herself The result has been mixed I don t know if it s really saved us time or not Ease of Use Data entry is quite simple to learn Archon is pretty teachable No software is intuitive but the training doesn t take too long Some institutions provide students and paraprofessionals with a cheat sheet that shows them what data to input where Archon is easy for nonarchivists to use we quickly train students to use it Like any other data entry it can be tedious With finding aids the main difficulty is keeping track of where you are in the finding aid Arch
146. rately as possible but I paraphrased and or condensed some comments Reasons for Selecting CollectiveAccess e Weare using it for a couple of things The features that were most appealing were the complexity of relationships that you could catalog between individuals The project we ve used it to execute is mainly a database that combines collection objects artists and story and locations It has a built in georeference capability that is easy to use We had planned to use more traditional collection management software for our project but when that didn t work we turned to OC e A lot of the other software that was looked at was too expensive OpenCollection is free a big factor in why they chose it Ease of Use e It s much easier than traditional collection management systems that I ve worked with e Tt would be easy for someone who isn t a trained archivist to use As long as there is a protocol written for someone who is entering the data it s pretty straightforward The only thing that might take more explaining is the taxonomy that you create The data is pretty easy Ease of Customization e If you have someone who can write code you can do all sorts of things Even I can change the names of fields check boxes etc You can make it do what you need to do e It s very flexible and customizable Any time you need to add a classification it makes it really easy it has an easy interface
147. re and it s been pretty seamless Ease of Customization There are built in customization features You can change labels of different fields provide instructions or guidelines etc We have added look up lists to add specific data and options In order to customize local use you don t need a programmer just a set of guidelines to say On this screen fill out these fields For CLIR it will be important for each repository to do the intellectual work up front of giving grad students good guidelines about how to formulate data A lot of data is not in controlled vocabularies there is a lot more loosey goosey notes stuff You don t want to leave grad students up to own devices to put what they want where User Community There s a great AT users group listserv that is quite active where people ask and answer questions We report bugs through the bug reporting system We ve found the developers to be extremely responsive to our concerns ever since the beta testing period We re very pleased with that there s a really good network of users built up The big thing about AT that will be interesting is that it will be leap of faith for institutions because it isn t clear what the sustainability trajectory will be for it We re hoping and betting that it s not just going to go away because we re moving a lot of data into it My experience with the user support has been excellent The listserv seems very
148. re still bug reports Users did report that there were some bugs or missing features for both tools as well as for commercial systems However they also said that their error reports were taken seriously and that the development teams are responsive to user questions and suggestions In the contemporary computing environment software is continually evolving witness the permanent beta status of Web 2 0 tools such as Google Documents It is possible for software to be too mature built using out of date technologies or approaches On the other hand some software never makes it out of beta or may not go in the direction anticipated so institutions may lose time and resources if they adopt untested software 7 Types of Software In 2005 Katherine Wisser reported on an EAD Tools Survey that revealed the diversity of ways in which archives created finding aids and the difficulty that smaller institutions in par ticular had in authoring and publishing EAD Wisser divided EAD tools into four categories authoring publishing discov ery search tools and knowledge best practice guides One of the most used tools at the time was the EAD Cookbook which provides a set of templates stylesheets and guidelines for creating finding aids Wisser found a disparity in the kinds of tools institutions used archivists at smaller archives tended to rely upon the EAD Cookbook while those at larger institutions often developed their own soluti
149. records as ready to release and generate EAD You can also generate MARC I think When you go into accessions you can flag all kinds of things It s easy to search and pull up a record You have an accession component transfer settings acquisition methods value attached donor etc You can put in all of the contact info a credit line and a brief description at accession level everything that you might need Once you actually do the top level collection record you can input basic information such as collection level display dates arrangement and description extent for finding aid scope content top level finding aid information location bibliographic summary creator etc You can put in the authority level history retention whether you expect accruals date range assigned location You can assign it to a shelf There is additional descriptive data media required technology subjects condition acquisition source and ownership data rights permission access reproduction rights all kinds of stuff as much or as little as you want to put in You can get something up quick and could actually put in item level records in later You can put in photos You can search by keyword or browse collections When you pull up the result you get a hierarchy on left with series level and on right you see EAD I like the support You know who you re talking to It s customizable to meet your needs a system out of the
150. retained Internationalization Internationalized user interface with translations into German and Dutch planned for September 15 2008 Flexibility of Data Yes Model Item level Description Yes well suited for item level description Interface for describing objects include previews of media files Reorganize Hierarchies Yes Objects may be arranged into hierarchies using is a part of relationships The search engine supports traversal of these hierarchies CollectiveAccess also supports hierarchical place authorities and vocabularies Dynamically Generate Not yet EAD Finding Aids Publish Finding Aids No Seems to be focused more on museum objects and lots rather Online than archival collections However it looks like EAD can be mapped to existing fields and hierarchies A finding aid interface can be developed rather easily and is the subject of a just started project with Northeast Historic Films a regional film archive in Maine http www oldfilm org They are using PBCore as their metadata scheme and to format their finding aids CollectiveAccess is supporting them in developing a finding aid presentation interface for their Web site Administrative Functio ns User Permissions Yes Support for OAI PMH support planned for September 15 2008 release Harvesting Syndication Customization In addition to the standard set of CollectiveAccess fields Confi
151. rface you would need a programmer It would be nice if you could plug standard authority lists into Archon or run a search of the LC authorities page and feed the results into Archon Although Archon recently went open source it is currently being developed by a single institution If they abandon Archon then the user community will suffer However the developers use Archon and have a vested interest in seeing it succeed Archon is easy to customize since it is based on CSS PHP and MySQL However it can be difficult to understand where each page is generated and what changes when you make a change Archival Management Software 101 Import export tools in Archon seem to work well if you are moving data from one instance to another but not piecemeal one collection at a time Archon doesn t support outputting content of collections in format optimized for printing I don t think there s enough guidance for users yet I d like to see expanded manuals for people trying to improve workflow and exporting to EAD MARC Right now each place is separately trying to figure out how to change what it s doing to fit into new system Archon can improve its reports features such as report of accessions in last month collections in one storage area I hope that Archon will build that soon Our technical guy has said the PHP code isn t very clean but he s not a PHP guy Another tech person seems
152. ries and results may be saved for later re use Advanced Search Yes Customizable Yes using Adlib Designer Built in Help Yes Link to Images and Yes Other Files Easy Data Entry Yes Other Features 2 Lisa Spiro 48 Archivists Toolkit 1 5 Home Page http www archiviststoolkit org Developer University of California San Diego Libraries the New York University Libraries and the Five Colleges Inc Libraries Funded by The Andrew W Mellon Foundation Developer s Description The Archivists Toolkit or AT is the first open source archival data management system to provide broad integrated support for the management of archives It is intended for a wide range of archival repositories The main goals of the AT are to support archival processing and production of access instruments promote data standardization promote efficiency and lower training costs Currently the application supports accessioning and describing archival materials establishing names and subjects associated with archival materials including the names of donors managing locations for the materials and exporting EAD finding aids MARCXML records and METS MODS and Dublin Core records Future functionality will be built to support repository user resource use information appraisal for archival materials expressing and managing rights information and interoperability with user authentication systems
153. rograms particularly in creating the inventory XML editors Web forms and archival management software e Container list A container list may describe the collection on a box level a folder level or an item level A container list is typically part of a finding aid 5 Preserve Definition Protecting materials from deterioration by rehousing them removing contaminants providing treatments and other means Preservation is an ongoing process that typically begins soon after the collection is acquired Documentation produced e Condition record Describes condition of collection at time of receipt e Conservation preservation record Describes steps taken to prevent collection from deteriorating 6 Provide access Definition Enabling people to locate information about the collection through catalog records finding aids indexes and other means Documentation produced e Catalog record Collection level record loaded into the library s archive s catalog typically in MARC format Some archives produce catalog forms providing basic information that technical services staff can use in creating the record such as title of collection creator s subject terms and description e Index Some archives create indexes to their collections by subject creator etc e EAD finding aid EAD is a XML based standard for encoding finding aids e Online exhibit collection Increasingly archives are digitizing collections adding descrip
154. rovides support for a number of collection manage ment tasks such as accessions and deaccessions loans and exhibits fundraising membership and object level cataloging The application is PC based but a Web based catalog can be built with the pur chase of the Past Perfect Online module which can be hosted by Past Perfect or installed on a local server Past Perfect does not currently provide support for EAD but that is being considered for a future release 6 Eloquent Archive http www eloquentsystems com products archive s shtml Eloquent Archives describes itself as an integrated application including all the functions for archival e http www pastperfect online com Archival Management Software 29 description accessioning de accessioning controlling vocabulary custodial management research requests tracking and other workflow management In addition to enabling archivists to manage and describe their collections it provides support for tracking researchers and the usage of collections Hosting for online access is available 8 Possible Approaches to Federating Archival Description from Multiple Repositories Researchers face many challenges in identifying and gaining access to archival holdings distributed at archives and special collections across the United States Many archives have not described all of their collections or made that information available online Even if archival description
155. rsion We haven t used it yet accessioning etc since people weren t sure if they wanted our collection management records to be all Web based but I think it s something we should try e Archivists tend to like it Overall Assessment e Archon is excellent for from now on or fresh creation of finding aids but it s a hassle to use with already created finding aids e Archon is the closest to a tool that allows you to only enter data once and have it come out in different forms you need e Archon is new and evolving They re taking feedback Archon s Response to User Feedback In response to user comments Archon Project Manager Chris Prom indicated that some seem to be geared toward earlier versions of the software Regarding the difficulty importing EAD files Prom explained Since Archon has more restrictive data requirements than those of EAD it will be impossible to write a single script to import every EAD instance However the current import script for EAD PHP could be customized by IT staff to handle difficult cases Version 2 2 provides better support for formatting data and Archon has supported Unicode since version 2 0 For those who want to create separate skins or themes for different collections Prom says that the capability to do this is in the API but it has not yet been implemented in the administrative interface A script to import authority lists from an Excel file
156. ry s physical Characteristics Resource Description Authority Control Yes name and subject authority Controlled vocabulary Yes Can reference controlled vocabularies as source in name subject record Compliance to Archival Standards Yes e International Council on Archives ISAAR CPF International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies Persons and Families 2nd ed e EAC e AACR2 e DACS Data Validation Yes If the record does not include required elements or conform to uniqueness requirements the user is informed that the record is not valid and provided with information necessary to fix the record Templating Default Fields Yes Default values for accessions deaccessions locations subjects resources resource components digital objects names and users Can use look up drop down values Archival Management Software 51 Support for Digital Digital Object module supports describing both simple single files Media and complex multiple files digital objects Produces unbound digital object one in which the metadata record simply references the digital content file e g Dublin Core or bound digital object one in which the metadata and the digital content files are bound together through the use of a digital binder or wrapper e g METS Internationalization No Flexibility of Data Relational database model a
157. s between May and July 2008 To encourage honesty I promised anonymity to the interviewees I tried to capture the interviewees remarks as accurately as possible but I paraphrased and or condensed some comments Reasons for Selecting AT The initial attraction is that we have a lot of tools in place for archival description and collection management but they re separate distinct tools data silos We had the accessioning database separated from EAD database along with a separate ILS a separate database for A V and photos etc The different databases were not integrated for end users just for the workflow point of view People needed to learn various tools It was difficult to reuse data because exporting demanded trying to cram it into whatever format the database was using We didn t have a budget to purchase anything We probably could have designed our own database but we couldn t have designed it to do everything that AT does We could have customized things to meet past practice but also decided to move away from old practices We don t want to be too flexible any more Also it was appealing that we could have input into development process as beta testers Our interest in AT is a function of where we ve been with managing descriptive information and collection information the information was all over the place Some descriptive information resides in the card catalog the library OPAC and paper finding
158. s org ocaccess Browse Yes Search Yes Flexible search engine The built in search engine supports full text searching over all fields in database field limited searches wildcards stemming Boolean combinations exclusion Boolean NOT operator phrase searches synonomy and more Both simple Google like and advanced search interfaces are offered Search results may be viewed in several formats as a list as a series of thumbnails as a mosaic many small icon like square thumbnails on a single page and if found objects are associated with georeferenced place name authority items as a map Advanced Search Yes see above Customizable Yes The public access module is designed to be easily personalized by those with basic Web development skills and to provide a useful platform for more experienced developers seeking to create a highly customized user experience You can also create your own customized front end like this one http artists parrishart org Built in Help Partial User manual is being written Link to Images and Yes Other Files Easy Data Entry Yes quick add feature for adding new authority records while cataloging Other Features e Automatic extraction of metadata from uploaded media files Metadata embedded in uploaded media files in EXIF IPTC IRB and XMP formats is extracted and stored in the database where it can be accessed for search or display e Built in
159. s to the full records in Archive Grid is available only through a subscription However through OpenWorldCat researchers can access a large subset of archives MARC records that are also available through ArchiveGrid It is possible that an archival version of the freely available OpenWorldCat Open ArchiveGrid could be developed so that a subscrip tion would not be required One archivist reported satisfaction with Archive Grid Archive Grid is harvesting our EAD files It seems to be gathering those OK Another aggregation model is provided by Archives Hub the United Kingdom s national gateway to descriptions of archives in UK universities and colleges Supported by Mimas a JISC and ESRC Economic and Social Research Council supported national data centre for higher education Archives Hub offers a distributed model for aggregating content from individual archives Archives can become spokes enabling them to retain control over their data and provide a custom search interface to their collections while also making their content available through a common interface Archives Hub 2008 Archives Hub is built on the Cheshire full text information retrieval system which includes a 239 50 server Archives Hub focuses on higher education institutions in the United Kingdom but will accept a9 http archivegrid org Author s interview with Bruce Washburn consulting software engineer for R
160. selecting software see Dewhurst 2001 TASI 2007 and Baron 1991 2 For detailed if slightly out of date requirements for archival and collection management software from an international perspective see Groot Horsman and Mildren 2003 Lisa Spiro 10 priateness of the technology platform Often the best way to evaluate the quality of the software and support is to speak with a variety of users both those recommended by the ven dors and those who are independently identified Through a site visit evaluators can see the software in action and under stand it in the context of archival workflows Most vendors and all open source projects make available a demo version or can arrange an online demonstration of the software Ar chivists should take the software through a variety of tasks to determine whether it is easy to use does what it needs to do and has any bugs If a commercial application is selected or ganizations should carefully spell out the terms of the con tract including support and training They should also de velop a maintenance plan for regular updates training and so forth If an open source application is selected archives should likewise determine how staff will be trained and how the technology will be kept up to date 6 Criteria for Choosing Archival Software No single archival management system will be appropriate for every archive given the variation in technical support available at the institution
161. ss There was no real way to get EAD out of Access and we wanted to get finding aids on the Web We were pretty pleased with what AT offered especially EAD export We have to abide by the Online Archive of California s guidelines so we needed to make some modifications to what AT exports to conform We re using AT as a collections management systems we re not using the ability to produce finding aids Within AT you have a resource record and component record for multilevel descriptions a couple of different levels We re using it at the highest level to manage accessions and information about local collections Ease of Use As someone who has taught an AT workshop twice I can say that people pick it up pretty quickly It does the basic things people need and it s easy to use for archivists who know what they need to do with archival description Someone who wasn t trained as an archivist had some problems with it it s set up with the assumption that you are an archivist We ve been using the Resource module selectively A few people have used it for finding aids because there have been special circumstances such as needing to work off site and it would have been difficult to set up our institutional macros and template It Lisa Spiro 94 worked out pretty well we could help them get stuff online by exporting data from the Toolkit e Archon and AT offer a good alternative to hand encoding We couldn
162. ss plan in collaboration with Ithaka Example Users 1 062 registered users of Version 1 1 1 756 registered users of Version 1 Users include Georgia Institute of Technology Archives and Records Management Princeton University Seeley G Mudd Manuscript Library and University of California Riverside Special Collections amp Archives Department Unique Strengths 1 Strong support for archival management functions 2 Supports export of METS MODS MARC Dublin Core batch export Many management reports Rich customization features Robust authority support Merge and transfer feature enables several staff to simultaneously describe different parts of the same resource De Ww Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC Yes Exports EAD Yes Exports Dublin Core Yes Exports MODS Yes Exports METS Yes Exports MADS No Batch Exports EAD Yes From the resource browse screen select two or more resources that you want to export as either EAD files or MARCXML records Batch Exports MARC Yes Batch Export Tab No Delimited Files Imports EAD Yes including abstract biographical history note scope and content publication rights conditions restrictions preferred citation and name subjects Imports MARC Yes Imports Tab Yes The Archivists Toolkit allows you to import data from either a Delimited Files tab delimited file from a table or flat file
163. sssccsestoneartiatsintanemntioinliacsies 103 Cuadra STAR Archives Summary a 104 Reasons for Selecting Quadra daa 104 Installation and Maintenance cccccccccccccssccssccssccssccsscssscsssssssssssesssssssssssessseeees 104 Ease Of Customization ccccccccccccccsccssccssccsscssscssscsssccsscssscesscssssssssssssssssssssesssesees 104 User Community SU ION eck da eshte saves aes boiler reves totes rtuat aout 105 Weaknessesiin O e as a o 105 A 105 Overall Assessmentiin aaa 107 Eloquent Archive SUMMAary A EA A 108 Reasons for Selecting Elo QUERER A Ad 108 East User a alt TE 108 Ease of Installati n i T n ono nono cno no NE 108 Ease Of Customizar nooi n r nono nonn conan ono nono n ona naar rra r arar A 109 User Community SUP BORE ral 109 Weaknesses aii 109 o ccs e e e ses aiaiai he eiai Rei aE eira rE 110 Eloquent s Response to User Fecdback aiii sdadi ke neh ae 110 Collective Access SUMMALY ati ii 112 Reasons for Selecting CellectiveAcress api pi 112 E E A IE NEN AA EAE NAE E TEE E EAEN AEN EAA AE 112 Ease Of Customizar a ET N E TOT 112 Weaknessesi at st da ANS 112 User Community SUPPOL sisas oa lalo 112 A 112 Acknowledgments In preparing this report I spoke or corresponded with a number of archivists software developers metadata specialists and vendors I would like to offer my sincere thanks for their insights and frankness this report would be much less rich without their input All errors are my own Lisa Atkinson
164. storage and searching across a variety of date ranges It also permits exact matches on dates e g date ends with 1910 The date formats were agreed by our users e g an AD circa date is 10 years either side and DS can consider other date formats if requested provided they can be calculated by the underlying program e Manages digital assets using ImageView and records metadata relating to digital images in the optional Images database Archival Management Software 63 CUADRA STAR Home Page http www cuadra com home page http www cuadra com products archives html description of STAR Archives Developer Cuadra Associates Inc Developer s Description STAR Archives supports the management of archival collections of all types In describing your collection you can choose an appropriate level within the full hierarchical model collections series containers and items With STAR Archives you can manage the accessioning process track donors and generate deeds of gift describe and maintain multiple archival collections including collections with digitized materials reorganize the hierarchies as required provide Web based access to your collections search within or across collections link images and other electronic files and manage your inventory You can also dispense with the labor intensive process of creating finding aids by using a text editor or an S
165. such as maintenance fees user support training hardware technical support and cus tomization Several interviewees noted that companies were willing to work with us to find an appropriate cost and that smaller institutions often benefited from a price break As one might expect more expensive products of ten come with more features Archives must decide which features are essential Sustainability Software comes and goes and archivists are rightly con cerned about their data being locked into a closed system If a company collapses or ends support for a product how will that affect archives who rely on it Open source projects seem to offer some advantages for sustainability since other programmers can continue to maintain and develop open source software should the original devel oper abandon it However some open source projects fade away after an initial burst of development activity and archives already stretched thin may not have the technical resources to pick up development work Never theless open source projects such as AT and ICA AToM are developing detailed business plans to ensure sustain ability looking at ways to charge fees for training and other services offer membership and affiliate with stable organizations that can offer support for the software Adapting the open source model some companies allow customers to buy in to escrow plans that will provide them with the code should the company end its
166. support of a product In any case to make sure that their data can be used for the long term archives should make sure that they can easily batch export the data in standard formats Quality of customer support Inevitably archivists will run into problems using archival management software whether because of bugs difficulty importing data the need to customize certain features confusion over how to use the software or technical problems Thus they rely on good customer support from vendors or in the case of open source software the devel opers and user community Many interviewees mentioned user support as a key factor in their satisfaction with a particular software package Vendors typically provide assistance via phone or e mail user forums frequently Archival Management Software 15 asked questions and user training In some cases help is included in annual maintenance fees but in others it en tails additional costs Open source projects may seem to be weaker than commercial projects with regard to user support As one archivist using an open source system commented There s no help desk However lively communities often form around open source projects and provide support to new users or those experiencing prob lems With Archon Collective Access and Archivists Toolkit archivists noted how responsive the developers are to questions In addition support for open source software may be available from consul
167. t CSV Yes Collection Management Features Appraisals Can be custom tailored for minimal charge Accessions Yes Create Deeds of Gift Yes Prioritize Processing Order Yes can be tailored Track Donors Yes Project Management Yes e Monitor the status of accessions e Track archivists responsible for the accession Record Condition Yes Track accessioning location management preservation and treatment Manage Locations Yes Manage Restricted Materials Yes Record access restrictions Manage Rights Configurable user groups and users ranging through public staff and administrator Manage Loans and Yes Exhibits Deaccessioning Yes Reference Support Partial Manage reading room research activities Archival Management Software 69 Generate Reports Yes Generate reports in HTML PDF XML or ASCII Track Repository Statistics Partial e Log all use of materials Log all research requests Log size linear and cubic measure in detail and summary totals by various selection criteria Resource Description Authority Control Yes compliant with ISAAR CPF Controlled Vocabulary Yes support for building thesauri Compliance to Yes Invoke DACS ISAD G and RAD standards or custom Archival Standards versions Data Validation Yes on specific fields
168. t or intranet access 3 MINISIS M2A http www minisisinc com index php page m2a MINISIS M2A was developed by MINISIS Inc in collaboration with the Archives of Ontario in the 1990s Since then the precursor ADD archival descriptive database has been enhanced to include more fields more databases more functionality and more workflow and processing to become M2A as we know it today M2A is flexible and customizable and it supports standards such as EAD ISAD G and RAD Additional modules such as client registration and space management are available MINISIS M2A is fully Web enabled and conforms to MARC RAD and EAD MINISIS M2A can be expensive but M2A Web which is geared toward smaller archives provides an inexpensive hosted solution for online creation and publishing of archival information 4 Adlib Archive 6 3 0 http www adlibsoft com Developed by a company based in the Netherlands Adlib Archive 6 3 0 offers support for international standards such as ISAD G and ISAAR CPF Adlib uses a Windows based desktop client and a database backend Web publishing of archival information is available through the purchase of the Adlib Internet Server which is built on Microsoft technologies Adlib Archive provides support for OAI 5 Past Perfect 4 0 http www museumsoftware com pastperfect4 htm Past Perfect describes itself as affordable flexible and easy to use collection management software It p
169. tancies or even the developers themselves For example the business plan for ICA AToM includes a provision for charging a commis sion for brokering ICA AtoM technical services between recommended third party contractors and institutions seeking assistance with ICA AtoM installation hosting customization new feature development etc To evaluate user support talk to users of different software packages Support for archival standards To facilitate interoperability and adherence to best prac tices archives will want to select software that meets ar chival standards such as EAD DACS and MARC as well as emerging standards such as EAC Some archival systems such as ICA AToM focus more on international ICA standards rather than on U S standards In the case of archival software developed in Europe Prom et al warn that such tools use a much more rigorous system of classification and provenance than do US repositories Prom et al 2007 159 However even many non U S applications support crosswalking between standards and include EAD support Web based versus desktop client Some archival management software such as Archon CollectiveAccess and ICA AToM is entirely Web based while other such software requires a desktop client typi cally a PC and connect to a database backend Web based software can be more intuitive for some users and enables distributed cataloging since anyone with Web access can contribute
170. tate exchange of information and con sistency As one user of an archival management system noted We could have customized things to meet past practice but we also decided to move away from old practices We don t want to be too flexible any more Katherine Stefko 2007 acknowledges the trade offs in sacrificing flexibility for consistency To use the AT effec tively implies a commitment to using current professional standards and while it would be hard to argue anything other than this being a good thing it undeniably raises the bar in terms of the time training and expertise an archivist needs in order to use it Accordingly we ve redirected staff time and modified our workflow so that more time is now spent accessioning material with the understanding that retrieval and reporting will be easier and reference and administrative work less later on Indeed one interviewee argued that the rigor and inflexibility of archival management systems are actually strengths since by using such software archives will ultimately produce more consistent data and facilitate the exchange and fed eration of archival information If each archive or even each collection took its own approach to archival descrip tion creating a federated finding aids repository would be difficult In that sense the development of archival man agement systems such as Archon and AT is an important step toward realizing the ARL Task Force on Speci
171. te METS objects The Toolkit is one of the things on the table They re supposed to be working on new functionality Now you have to build whole resource description from the collection to folder level before you can build a digital object but you will be able to build a METS object that isn t connected to anything at folder level Not many tools are easy to use by people not trained in XML If libraries have to train everyone who is working with collections to use XML it will be challenging to roll out In an XML editor you don t get a nice tree view you have to do special things to produce that view They are building AT so that you have metadata and visual screen that shows you where you are in the structure In workshops most archivists felt confident at end of 2 days in their ability to implement the tool We need tools that work more like word processors and visually let you see where information is Lisa Spiro 98 Ease of creating our resource descriptions EAD export has worked fairly well for us It seems pretty intuitive to use It s cut down a lot of work for us in getting things into EAD or MARC Down the road I m looking forward to having accessions and collection information interacting more Archival Management Software 99 Archon Summary To understand how archivists use Archon I conducted phone interviews with five archivists between May and June of 2008 To encourage honesty I promised anonym
172. the developers want ICA AToM to become a platform to manage archival information including creating digital repository interfaces to systems such as DSpace and Fedora through a plug in architecture They plan to build in Web 2 0 features such as user contributed content user tagging and social networking ICA AToM is currently in beta testing Version 1 2 due to be released in summer 2009 will provide support for accessioning OAI harvesting crosswalking to Archival Management Software 27 standards such as DACS EAD import and export and many other features Although ICA AToM is designed more in accordance with ICA standards than U S standards Van Garderen indicated that someone could easily add support for standards such as DACS and EAD and that version 1 2 will support EAD MARC data import and export For ICA AToM then standards such as EAD and EAC will be exchange formats while ISAD standards will be the core data format ICA AToM is new and many of its features have yet to be released For this reason it is difficult to evaluate this software However members of the archival community are excited about its potential An archivist who recently saw a presentation on ICA AToM observed that the project has impressive people on the team and that the project lead is a trained archi vist Development seems to be proceeding quickly within a month the developers added the capability of attaching digital objects and are w
173. tion Tools on the other hand are soft ware applications that typically focus on specific tasks and can be components of systems Rather than explicitly rec ommending particular software this report takes archivists through the main decision points including types of licenses cost support for collection management and flexibility versus standardization The report draws upon interviews with users as well as on previous studies of archival software and information provided by the developers and vendors It offers features matrices for selected archival management systems so that archivists can make quick comparisons of different software Instead of evaluating the performance of the soft ware this report compares features and reports on the experi ences of archivists in implementing them This report is in tended to be a resource for the archival community to build upon hence it is available as a wiki at http archivalsoftware pbwiki com and archivists information technology IT staff and developers are invited to add new information to it 2 The Problem of Hidden Collections According to a 1998 Association of Research Libraries ARL survey of special collections libraries about 28 percent of Lisa Spiro 2 manuscript collections are unprocessed while 36 percent of graphic materials and 37 percent of audio materials have not been processed Pantich 2001 Furthermore the survey found that the most frequent typ
174. tiple RepositorieS visten ainia iaa 29 ON CONGIUSION A O CO EN then Be CNA 32 Works Cited chewhtan Bit wists E aan aetas 33 Appendixes Appendix 1 The Archival WorktlO Weinstein rencias 38 Appendix 2 Archival Management Systems Features Matrix Brief 42 Appendix 3 Archival Management Systems Features Matrices Full 44 Appendix 4 Notes from Interviews with Archivists about Archon Archivists Toolkit Cuadra STAR Archives Eloquent and Collective Access ii A ti 92 Archivists Toolkit SUuMmMary sein ni Rea 92 Reasons for Selecting Archivists Tools odas 92 AA E O EE EERE TE EA EEA TEA 93 Installation and Maintenance ccccccccccccccscccscssscsessssscsscsssssesssesssesssesssesssessseseees 94 Ease Of Customizar e a e TE OT 95 User Community enian eR a AA 95 Weak nesesito de iis hei IAE 95 Strengths ess e aiee a SeN nt aie lusdiate pa ES Laa East RER a eE SNE 96 ACCRO SUNMAYA Ne as ra e aa a a E er wet er 99 Reasons for Selecting Ar rocas irc cios ies ais 99 Fase Use 2 tek o O a O Motes ie 99 Installation and Maintenance ccccccccccccsccsssssscssscssscssscsssccssessscssscssssssssssssesees 100 Ease Of CustOmiZatlOns died 100 Weakniessesin a a ario e Os O e O OEE re oe Aa 100 User Community es ea e ae gn i Ti E EE E E NE 101 BETAS ENG 2s season ha ia Seca eTa a a ban cent os asain eE S 102 Overall Assessment sironnan a n e eei iin conc nono iiti iine 103 Archon s Response to User Feedback isu ce
175. tiple interfaces available For instance the system can support a senior descriptive officer profile that can review edit or note required changes of all new records in M2A before they become permanent records in the system Whereas another profile exists to allow archivists to edit and update only the records they created This type of profiling provides even greater flexibility for a client The M2A was designed to allow clients to document their collections in two primary classifications government records at a series level description or private records at a collection level description The M2A system supports the comprehensive documentation for any archival record with nine principal levels The software is easy to adapt can satisfy all requirements for archival and other management needs from accessioning to description to vital statistics License Commercial Purchasing Cost Depends on number of users country GDP number of applications purchased M2A is sold as a complete system whether all the modules are required or not Some features can be blocked to reduce costs Those features can then be engaged as the institution requires or has the resources to do so MINISIS M2A can be expensive but M2A Web which is geared toward smaller archives provides an inexpensive hosted solution for online creation and publishing of archival information Maintenance Cost MINISIS has a technical support
176. tive metadata and providing access to them online 7 Offer reference services 4 Penn State Archives http www libraries psu edu psul researchguides matbytype archmanu html Lisa Spiro 40 Definition Assisting patrons in identifying and using collections Documentation produced Reference statistics Information about number and nature of reference queries including researcher s affiliation collection used purpose of visit etc e Patron record Patron s contact information research objectives agreement to abide by archive s policies etc Archival Management Software Appendix 1 Documentation Produced in the Typical Archival Workflow Appraisal Appraisal report Accessioning Register Accession Form Accession Log Deed of gi Arrangement ft Donor Record Sa Box folder listing Processing Plan Location record Shelf List Describe 7 Container list Finding Aid Preserve 2 Condition Record Conservation Preservation Record Provide Access Catalog record EAD Index Offer Reference Services A Reference Stats N Patron Record Digital collections exhibits Lisa Spiro 42 Appendix 2 Archival Management Systems Features Matrix Brief LEGEND Y Yes N No P Partial NR Next R
177. to be dealing with it fine The Archon folks are working on cleaning up code T want to see some features become more robust The accessions module is not as complex as would be helpful for university archives people You need to be able to deal with annual deposits accession number date etc Archivists Toolkit does much better from most accounts with accessions There are little features that we want such as the ability to hide parts of a finding aid for restricted materials Right now you can have material either online or off but it would be nice to hide part of a finding aid We ve not yet used the digital library manager we ve heard that it needs to be more robust I know someone who is using it and is happy with it We have issues with loading our existing database Our main problem is importing existing EAD records Archon is less forgiving than EAD it s like a database If you tag EAD and it validates you re good to go but Archon just won t accept some stuff such as IDs with characters rather than a box folder structure We haven t been able to import three of our most important complex finding aids We re going to have to cut and paste these finding aids in When you re copying and pasting there s room for error If it was just a mechanical import I d be more confident We weren t anticipating how to do that kind of work The Archon people tried to help us but weren t able to The Archon
178. to do the system is customizable Originally it s a database system but they have made specialized modules to address different types of customers such as information management for business users You can customize it modify data entry screens Web searches etc but there is a steep learning curve if you want to do that in house I can do a lot of conversions and modifications in house If you want certain changes you can always have Cuadra do it We hope to host our own server in three years so that we have complete control of the Web interface Right now we contract with Cuadra Star to make changes to Web interface If we installed it we could use our own staff to make changes it would allow us the freedom to have changes made in house We ve focused more on content and haven t really put much effort into customizing the Web interface It took a little while to refine how information would be stored or would display We weren t sure at the Archival Management Software 105 beginning what to ask for because we weren t sure what the data would look like We have started to do some customization It hasn t been difficult but it s a little slow we submit a proposal get a quote get it paid for and then it is changed User Community Support They provide excellent support it s very timely When I had a question the tech called me up did a WebEx and showed me what I needed There are help boxes next to differ
179. to edit existing vocabularies or create new ones from scratch A tool is included to import Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus AAT data files into CollectiveAccess It should be possible to load other thesauri into CollectiveAccess without modification to the core system Compliance to Archival Standards Flexible configurable data model can set up to support particular standards by creating object and authority level attributes These attributes can map to specific elements of various standards Data Validation Yes Configurable id accession numbering for lots objects and authorities CollectiveAccess may be configured to enforce standards and or auto generate unique identifiers for lots objects and authority records Identifiers may be composed of multiple parts each with its own specification and requirements You can also set pattern matching for attributes and length and value boundary checks for text and number numbers respectively Dates are always validated with invalid dates rejected Uploaded media is also validated with unrecognized or invalid formats rejected Templating Default Fields Yes Object templates give you the ability to use an existing object record as the basis of new records Support for Digital Media Yes CollectiveAccess understands and can process convert and display digital media files in many formats including Imagery JPEG JPEG 2000 G
180. to use the system either to in put or search data I understand that getting accessions information is a challenge for everyone It s a little bit of a challenge with the descriptive information It was stuff that was cataloged by many people over many eras using many different standards or none at all Cleaning it up will take time but there are no significant challenges from the system itself It seems to do everything we want it to do Installation and Maintenance Installation depends on how you set it up We have the back end My SQL set up on a server so various people can connect to it Getting it set up in a networked environment took coordination from IT staff Once that happened it was smooth We installed it on laptops during testing and that s been fairly quick e Installation was pretty easy We have a small systems department One of our systems persons installed it We just upgraded it and that was like installing any piece of software I don t know what would happen now that we have user defined Archival Management Software 95 fields what information would be lost with an upgrade So far installing it has been a piece of cake Our systems department did the installation On the listserv you see people with issues with My SQL Our systems staff didn t have any problems with the installation We haven t had any problems with the database IT staff have moved it around a lot onto different hardwa
181. ts Archives Photos Library and Contacts data from Excel ASCII dBase and FoxPro Conversions team can help transfer data from other sources Batch Import EAD Batch Import MARC Batch Import CSV Yes Collection Management Features Appraisals Yes Accessions Yes Create Deeds of Gift Yes Prioritize Processing Status field Order Track Donors Yes Lisa Spiro 90 Project Management Yes To do list Record Condition Yes Manage Locations Yes Manage Restricted Yes Materials Manage Rights Yes Manage Loans and Yes Exhibits Deaccessioning Yes Reference Support With new version of PastPerfect online can see Web stats Generate Reports Yes Track Repository No Statistics Resource Description Authority Control Yes Controlled Vocabulary Lexicon The Revised Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging Chenhall s Nomenclature Authority files Compliance to Yes Fields conform to international standard ISAD G Archival Standards Data Validation Partial for authority control numeric fields etc Templating Default Users can add records using Fill with current data or with default Fields data Support for Digital Can purchase Multi Media Digital Imaging Upgrade which has Media been enhanced to include not only digital imaging but multi media capabilities that allow you to attach a
182. uate students with unprocessed or underprocessed collections in their areas of interest and trains them in archival methods resulting in processed collections for us and dissertation thesis or research topics for them Steele 2008 UCLA develops a plan for processing each collection and uses an online calculator to estimate costs 3 The Role of Software in Addressing Hidden Collections Reducing archival backlogs fundamentally requires adopting more efficient means of processing collections but software can contribute to that efficiency and make it easier for archives to provide online access to archival descriptions At many archives information is scattered across several different digital and physical systems resulting in duplication of effort and difficulty in locating needed information For instance one archive uses a hodgepodge of methods to manage its collections including paper accession records an Access database for collection level status information lists and da tabases for tracking statistics hundreds of EAD finding aids hundreds of paper control folders providing collection level information some of which is duplicated in Word files or in XML finding aids and item level descriptions of objects to be digitized in Excel spreadsheets This miscellany means that Lisa Spiro 4 there are problems with versioning redundancy finding in formation and making that information publicly accessible Likewise Chris Prom
183. urvey Initiative Society of American Archivists Manuscript Repositories Newsletter Summer Available at http www archivists org saagroups mss summer2007 asp 5 Digital Publishing Group UC Berkeley Library n d EAD History Available at http www lib berkeley edu digicoll bestpractices ead_hist ory html Florida Center for Library Automation May 28 2008 Sustaining amp Growing The Opening Archives In Florida Project Report of Ad Hoc Project Advisory Group Meeting Available at http www fcla edu dlini OpeningArchives advisoryGrou pMeeting pdf Greene Mark and Dennis Meissner 2005 More Product Less Process Revamping Traditional Archival Processing American Archivist 68 2 208 263 Available at http archivists metapress com content c741823776k65863 Groot Tamara Peter Horsman and Rob Mildren November 2003 OSARIS Functional Requirements for Archival Description and Retrieval Software Paris International Council on Archives Available at Archival Management Software 35 http www archiefschool nl docs Osaris 20Draft 20Requi rements pdf Jones Barbara Hidden Collections Scholarly Barriers 2003 Association of Research Libraries Task Force on Special Collections Available at http www arl org bm doc hiddencollswhitepaperjun6 pdf Lake David Russell F Loiselle and Debra Steidel Wall 2003 Market Survey of Commercially Available Off the Shelf Archival
184. users Output may be in the form of METS TEI EAD XML or SGML even HTML or PDF University of California Berkeley 2005 Online Archive of California Makes available Web forms for generating collection through series subseries level finding aids that are compliant with the OAC BPG EAD and EAD Version 2002 Encoders cut and paste segments of their non EAD finding aids into the form The form is then converted to a text file and saved as a XML EAD file ArchivesHub Provides a Web form for generating EAD 2002 EAD XForms Justin Banks s EAD templates allow users to enter archival information into a form The templates were built using Altova s Style Vision2006 and require an XML editor such as Altova Authentic2006 or Altova XMLSpy to implement X EAD The University of Utah is developing form based desktop software for authoring and editing EAD EAD Validation By validating EAD files archives can ensure their adherence to standards and facilitate participation in union catalogs and regional repositories Several online validation services are available including the following Florida Center for Library Automation s Encoded Archi val Description Validator and XSL Transformer A Web page that was created for museums archives libraries historical societies and similar agencies in Florida who create collection finding aids guides according to the En coded Archival Description EAD standard
185. variability of EAD Archivists Toolkit AT http www archiviststoolkit org Developed by a consortium including the University of California San Diego Libraries the New York Univer sity Libraries and the Five Colleges Inc Libraries and supported by The Andrew W Mellon Foundation AT bills itself as the first open source archival data man agement system to provide broad integrated support for the management of archives AT uses a Java desktop client and a database back end MySQL MS SQL or Oracle Users report that AT makes it easier to produce finding aids and export EAD and MARC generates useful reports provides robust authority control and offers good support for standards such as METS Several archivists believe that AT will provide an integrated tool set for managing and describing archival information I like the promise of having a single database for collection management You do the accession record push a button convert to a resource record and export as EAD and MARC It s not quite there yet but moving in that direction Another archivist noted that AT helps archives establish proc essing priorities by allowing them to mark and then find high priority collections In a presentation on AT Georgia Tech Archives highlights several reasons for adopting it including developed by archivists promotes efficiency and standardization serves as master version of finding aid i
186. veGrid Rebecca L Wendt California State Archives Brad Westbrook University of California San Diego Archivists Toolkit e Jennifer Whitfield Past Perfect e Kathy Wisser University of North Carolina Chapel Hill vi Foreword With generous support from The Andrew W Mellon Foundation the Council on Library and Information Resources has launched a multiyear program that addresses the challenge of cataloging hidden collections those materials held in special collections archives and other restricted or relatively inaccessible settings The program has two major dimensions first to identify hidden collections of potential value to scholars and second to address the thorny issue of cataloging such materials efficiently effectively and in such a way that the catalog records are available to scholars through the Web In this paper Lisa Spiro describes and analyzes some of the major technologies that are available to librarians curators and archivists and the implications of deploying these systems for existing workflows We offer this report to the community with the hope that it will foster discussion as well as aid CLIR s evaluation of awards and articulation of lessons to be learned Ms Spiro has established a wiki at http archivalsoftware pbwiki com FrontPage We encourage readers to contribute their experiences Amy Friedlander Director of Programs Council on Library and Information Resources January 9 2009
187. version 2002 The tools on this page permit EAD creators to a validate test their EAD documents against the rules described in the EAD Document Type Definition maintained by the Library of Congress b generate a HTML version of their finding aid from the original EAD encoding using a XSL stylesheet maintained for the ARCHIVES FLORIDA database and c derive Dublin Core metadata records from their original EAD documents e http www cdlib org inside projects oac toolkit http www archiveshub ac uk arch dc shtml tools http www archivists org saagroups ead tools html 24 http www lib utah edu digital tools php 2 http good ead fcla edu Archival Management Software 23 RLG EAD Report Card The first automated Program for checking the quality of your EAD encoding E EAD Publishing As several interviewees noted publishing EAD finding aids online presents a real challenge especially to smaller archives without much technical support Finding aids can be con verted to HTML and placed on a Web server or loaded into an XML database publishing system operations that are be yond the capabilities of many archives Alternatively archives can upload the XML file include a call out to an XSLT stylesheet and use the browser to transform XML to HTML Some archives deposit their finding aids with a regional re pository such as Online Archive of California OAC Texas Archival Resources Online TAR
188. viewable At one archive students enter data but only the director of special collection can make it publicly viewable giving things a final check and clicking a button to publish them Tools such as Archon and Archivist Toolkit may lower the bar for participating in EAD by enabling people to enter data into forms rather than having to know EAD coding Archivists are embracing EAD over MARC because of the richness of the data Can create a draft MARC record that catalogers can then polish Good authority control As Archon has matured the ability to deal with importing authority data and controlled vocabulary is coming along very well which pleases librarians Archon may offer EAC support once the standard is fully developed Makes information more widely available For instance Google indexes Archon contents One archive reported increased interest in its collections from people around the world after it implemented Archon Archon can make hidden collections more visible Easy to navigate Everything is accessible in one stream Archon feels like a Web page When you re in the Admin module there are mouse over menus in the interface Simple interface Uses simple easy to understand language Archon is not archivist centric even though it is very useful for standardizing archival finding aids It guides lay users through archival arrangement Users seem to like Archon but we haven t done user testing After showing folks Archon in th
189. vs acrl acrlpubs rbm backissuesvol5no2 tabb pdf TASI 2007 TASI Choosing a System for Managing Your Image Collection Available at http www tasi ac uk advice delivering choose ims html University of California Berkeley 2005 Berkeley Web Template CGI Script Available at http sunsite3 berkeley edu ead tools template Utah State Archives 2002 Encoded Archival Description Project Available at http historyresearch utah gov inventories ead htm Ven K J Verelst and H Mannaert 2008 Should You Adopt Open Source Software Software IEEE 25 3 54 59 Whitlock Natalie March 1 2001 The Security Implications of Open Source Software IBM Developer Works Available at http www ibm com developerworks linux library 1 oss html Wilson James A J 2007 updated 2 Sept 2008 Benefits of Open Source Code Text Available at http www oss watch ac uk resources whoneedssource xml Wilson James A J 2006 Open Source Maturity Model Text JISC OSS Watch Available at http www oss watch ac uk resources osmm xml Wisser Katherine M 2005 EAD Tools Survey http www archivists org saagroups ead EADToolsSurvey pdf Woodson Research Center February 1 2008 Wishlist for Archival Management Systems Fondren Library Rice University Yale University Library 2003 Report to the Digital Library Federation Available at http www digli
190. ystem of the server The following server operating systems are supported Windows 2000 2003 Unix Linux Users responsible for creating records and managing the application need PCs that run under Windows 2000 Windows 2003 Windows XP or Vista Technical Architecture 1 Windows client for managing collections 2 Web based public search interface Backup Restore STAR relies on standard backup procedures that are included with Utility operating systems and commercial third party backup software Maturity STAR itself was first released in 1982 Organizations have been using STAR to manage archival collections since 1983 STAR Archives was released in 2003 Hosting Available Yes Demo Sandbox Yes by request Available Sustainability Maintained by company Example Users Available on request Unique Strengths 1 Institutions without much technical support can have Cuadra host their data 2 Provides browser based public search interface 3 Rich archival management features 4 Flexibility Support for Importing Exporting Metadata Exports MARC Yes Exports EAD Yes Finding aids are generated in EAD as XML files one user reported problems with EAD export Exports Dublin Core Yes Exports MODS No Exports METS No Exports MADS No Batch Exports EAD Yes EAD files for a repository can be exported as a batch Batch Exports MARC Yes Batch Export Tab Yes Delimited Files Imports EAD Yes with support from the company Imports

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