I’ve finally started uploading out finding aids to our CARLI hosted install of Archon and am really enjoying this whole process. Simply recreating the finding aids we currently have (as word documents) in Archon has gone pretty well.

I’m manually creating the Collection group from the current finding and then uploading the Collection Content (Box and Folder list) in small batches in CSV form via the Database Management tab.

One thing I’m noticing is that most of these finding aids have a long (very long!) arrangement section and no scope or description as such. It’s very rich metadata that I don’t want to lose, but it would be nice if there was a shorter description and scope note to aid researchers. Archon prioritizes these fields by having them display on the main landing page and that makes it important enough to consider. I’ll add that to the “next step” for Archon that I have planned.

One small by interesting question was how to format abbreviations, etc. in Archon. Migrating and populating a new database (especially by batch loading and manipulating data in Excel) allowed for some relatively global changes. So I’ve decided to implement some principles of RDA! Exciting, I know.

RDA and Archon

Looking to the future, I’ve decided to implement the following changes to our descriptive metadata following the recommendations of RDA:

The abbreviations “c.” and “ca.” will be spelled out as “approximately” for the box and folder lists.
The abbreviation “n.d.” will be written out as “Date not identified” when standing alone and “undated” when part of a list.
Months will be spelled out in full form; “August” instead of “Aug.” and so forth.

Next Steps for Archon

Reviewing my previous post on Archon, my updated “next steps” now include:

Write short Scope and Abstract statements for each collection.
Apply language headings for the material.
Create and maintain creator records – doing authority control and supplying minimal descriptive information.
Choose and apply Library of Congress Subject Headings.