LIMITATIONS OF ARCHIVISTS’ TOOLKIT

KATHLEEN SULLIVAN

ARCHIVISTS’ TOOLKIT

• Open source archival management system – provides broad support for the management of archives

• Intended for a wide range of archival functions

• Supports data standardization – DACS compliant• Promotes efficiency and streamlines workflows

• Community of active users

• Good documentation and training materials

ALL YOUR DATA LIVES IN ONE PLACE!!

Data Residence

ARCHIVISTS’ TOOLKIT (AT)

Sample EAD output

• Records accessions, describes resources and digital objects, and tracks materials

• Generates EAD, MARCXML, MODS, METS and DC

LIMITATIONS

• One resource record – only one user

• Additional attempts to login yield an error• Large/collaborative projects - would be

helpful to allow simultaneous users

• Limited search functionality

• No search option within resource record screen• Time consuming to locate files

LIMITATIONSCannot search resource record

LIMITATIONS

• Importing legacy finding aids can be very complicated

• Fields don’t map directly to AT• A lot of data cleanup

• Users want additional collection

management tools

• To express processing priorities,

current status, condition of materials• Capture user information

• Too many data elements?

LIMITATIONS

• Buggy

• Frequent errors• Tends to crash• Connection times out

• May require significant

customization

• To achieve functionality• User-defined fields

LIMITATIONS

Users want:

• Spell check

• Undo button

• Validation errors for duplicate records (box/folder number)

FUTURE:ARCHIVESPACE - 2013

• Drawing on best features of AT and Archon

• Promises to address many of the issues AT could not

• Will support AT and Archon legacy data

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