ArchivesSpace is the database we use to store information about the Science History Institute’s archival collections.We store descriptions of our archival collections the following places:
Location | Format | Number | Source | Example | Who can see it? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word documents | ? | This is the original collection description. | ? | Institute staff |
ArchivesSpace site | MySQL-backed website | Roughly 45 as of 2020 | Entered manually based on the P drive Word files. | https://archives.sciencehistory.org/resources/81#tree::resource_81 | Only logged in ArchivesSpace users |
OPAC | ? | Exported manually as PDF from the ArchivesSpace site, then attached to the OPAC record for the collection | https://othmerlib.sciencehistory.org/articles/1065801.15134/1.PDF | Public | |
ArchivesSpace Apache front end | EAD (xml format) | Roughly 45 as of 2020 | Generated nightly from ArchivesSpace database | https://archives.sciencehistory.org/ead/scihist-2012-021.xml | Public |
ArchivesSpace Apache front end | HTML | Roughly 45 as of 2020 | Generated nightly from ArchivesSpace database | Public |
Workflow
Finding aids are stored as Word documents at
Shared/P/Othmer Library/Archives/Collections Inventories/Archival Finding Aids and Box Lists
.Kent enters the data in them, one by one, into ArchivesSpace. He revises them in the process. As of summer 2020 approximately 45 have been entered.
Once they are in ArchivesSpace:
Kent exports them to a PDF, which he then sends to Victoria. These are entered into the OPAC. (see e.g. the “Digital Image” links when you run this search.. https://othmerlib.sciencehistory.org/articles/1065801.15134/1.PDF )
They are also automatically exported, via a nightly cron job described below, to https://archives.sciencehistory.org/ead/ .
They are also converted to HTML where most of them are available to the public. Some examples:
Papers of John H. Wotiz: https://archives.sciencehistory.org/2006-085.html
Papers of Myron S. Simon: https://archives.sciencehistory.org/2007-025.html
Papers of John B. Fenn: https://archives.sciencehistory.org/2012-003.html
Records of Carbogel, Incorporated: https://archives.sciencehistory.org/2012-021.html
Papers of Sam Brody: https://archives.sciencehistory.org/2004-011.001.html
Finally, the exported EAD files are also ingested by University of Penn Libraries Special Collections and the Center for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (CHSTM).
Penn, in turn, processes these EAD files (possibly nightly) and adds them to the Philadelphia Area Archives Research Portal (PAARP)
Likewise, CHSTM ingests these EADs and makes them searchable at its search portal.
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The current production version of Aspace is 2.7.1
.
Terminal access: ssh -i /path/to/production/pem_file.pem ubuntu@50.16.132.240
The ubuntu
user owns all the admin scripts.
The relevant Ansible role is: /roles/archivesspace/
in the ansible-inventory
codebase.
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