Implementing Archivists’ Toolkit (AT) in UGA Special Collections Esther Giezendanner (Cataloging), Abby Griner (Russell Library), Sheila McAlister (Digital Library of Georgia), and Kat Shirley (Russell Library)

Sponsored by the Professional Development and Research Committee

What is Archivists’ Toolkit?

 Archivists’ Toolkit (AT) is an open source database that supports description and management of archival materials  AT consists of 4 sections: Names, Subjects, Accessions, and Resources

What are UGA Special Collections doing with Archivists’ Toolkit?

 Track incoming donations/transfers/purchases to the collection  Maintain name and subject heading authorities  Tracking the physical location of collection items within the department  Creating finding aids for online access

Managing the Russell’s Accessions

 Accessioning: “process whereby the custody of archival material is transferred to the repository”   Accessions numbers comprised of two parts – year received and accession sequence (2009.01, 2009.02) Prior to Archivists’ Toolkit the Russell managed incoming material with the accession registers and an Access database

Accessions Module

Cataloging Hargrett manuscripts for addition to Archivist’s Toolkit

Esther Giezendanner

At the beginning of the project:

 Hargrett has ~3200 manuscript collections  Some had MARC records from the GAMMA project   Many with a data sheet only- no finding aid or MARC records Not in Archivist’s toolkit

Workflow

Check Hargrett files Create MARC record in OCLC Import to GIL and assign location codes Consult Chuck on questions A tracking document is updated throughout Enter OCLC# in spreadsheet for Sheila

Data collection

 Based on accession folders  Additional checklist

MARC record

 Similar to books: – Descriptive – Subject  Differences – Variety of information  – Sources We’re only doing regular cataloging!

OCLC

Move to GIL

Challenges and progress

 Volume  Sources – Hargrett – outside

Turn it over to Sheila!

 Update spreadsheet, entering OCLC numbers for easy access!

Hargrett Library AT Project

Sheila McAlister Associate Director, DLG [email protected]

Project Overview

 MARC cataloging of collections  Ingest of MARC records into AT  Ingest of name authority records  Outsourcing of box and folder lists  Ingest of skeleton EAD

MARC cataloging

 Cooperative project with Cataloging Department, DLG, Hargrett  Checklist  Hargrett staff overview  Tracking through wiki

Ingest of MARC records

 Download MARCXML Toolkit from LC  Set up file export preferences in OCLC  Download binary MARC from OCLC  Convert to MARC21slim XML  Ingest into AT  Add extent number and type  Clean up

OCLC Preferences

MARC XML Conversion

MARC Ingest Issues

 Must delete file.mrc after each conversion  Can only load one record at a time  Can only ingest collection-level records (not series-level)  Resource record can be merged, but duplication of SHs

MARC Ingest Issues (2)

 Name authority merging/updating required  Reordering of subject strings  Merging of name subdivisions

Ingest NAME records

 No current import of authority records  Backdoor method (import dummy accession record)  Convert DLG NAME records to AT format for ingest

DLG’s NAME database

 DLG’s name authority control database, http://purl.galileo.usg.edu/name/  Exports xml authority records through xml gateway  http://dlgmaint.galib.uga.edu/cgi bin/name.cgi?userid=ultimate_xml&query=pj %3Acrdl%20and%20anpe:* (results)

Ingest

 Create dummy record  Strip out unneeded elements and translate to AT accession schema (see appendix “Preparing XML Accession Files” for field names)  Load in  Delete dummy accession record

Issues with authority ingest

 No real ingest currently exists  NAME not as granular as MARC  Unable to pre-load alternative name forms  Upcoming version will have greater name authority functionality

Outsourcing

 Specs – Use modified DLG EAD specs (based on OAC) – – No info Only high-level element filled in sample  Scan/mark-up box folder lists – Reflect levels – –

Finalizing Finding Aids

 Upon vendor return, quality control  Imported into AT  Hooks onto already existing MARC record  Export complete EAD file for XTF ingest

XTF: What Is It and Why is Russell Library Using it?

Abby R. Griner

Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies University of Georgia Libraries [email protected]

What is XTF?

 eXtensible Text Framework  “flexible indexing and query tool that supports searching across collections of heterogeneous data and presents results in a highly configurable manner”  http://xtf.wiki.sourceforge.net/

System architecture (simplistic and linear)

How is Russell using it?

 As a full-text searchable database to display finding aids for our open archival collections and selected accessions  In the future...to display online exhibits with digital objects

Why is Russell using XTF?

 Finding aids encoded for XTF can easily be imported into AT  Open source (Free as in kittens NOT beer)  Extremely customizable  Displays a variety of file types (xml, html, jpg, txt, pdf)  Does not require developer to have an extensive programming background  Full text search within XTF AND in Google

Other Archives Using XTF



California Digital Library

uses “XTF as a building block for new services and has used it to replace a number of systems previously used for text searching (i.e., DLXS, Greenstone, DynaWeb)”: http://oac.cdlib.org/search.findingaid.html

http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/  OhioLINK (consortium of Ohio libraries) http://ead.ohiolink.edu/xtf-ead/  Digital Library of Georgia http://redandblack.libs.uga.edu/xtf/browse/1915.html

What You Can Expect to See:

 Over 100 of Russell Library's collections (box and folder lists included) available for public access   Soft launch (“beta”) – 1 st week of June 2009 Hard launch – August 2009 

Be on the lookout:

http://russelldoc.galib.uga.edu/russell/