Kara Lewis, Collections Information System Administrator/Analyst, National Museum of the American Indian

1. Why Fix It? A Collaborative
Project to Improve EMu for
Managing Archives
KARA LEWIS
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

2. Background
 Discussion groups for at least the past two years in US and UK
 Online Google group formed two years ago
 Survey to understand needs of community

3. Survey results: Respondents

4. Survey results: Usage of EMu

5. Survey results: Other tools

6. Survey results: Collection types

7. Survey results: Collection levels

8. Survey results: Interest in group
 Other:
• Encourage Axiell to expand archival
functionality
• Want to work with awareness of outside
practice and standards
• Interested in incorporating digital
preservation standards into EMu

9. Survey results: Collaboration topics
 Other:
• Digital preservation
• Performing arts collections

10. Discussion group themes
 Dealing with materials catalogued in different ways
 Exporting in multiple formats – mapping
 Importing with XML
 Dealing with digital objects/archiving digital assets
 Interest in linking objects to archives
 Many don’t use system for locations – too difficult
 Many have made own changes to tabs and fields
 Interest in linked open data
 Making sure aligning with community standards
 Need for better usability, even if fields exist

11. UK Axiell conference
 Instead of discussion, presented status and a plea
 Recommended a working group
 Success!

12. Results so far
 Seven institutions agreed to work together
 Have had three meetings: July, August, September
 Videoconference across eight time zones
 Have reviewed some of what we already have at our institutions

13. Starting plan
 First review design
 Meets EAD and ISAD(G) standards?
 Any fields missing?
 Then review functionality
 Workflow of adding levels
 Other tasks
 Then move on to interoperability
 XML imports
 Exports in various formats

14. Challenges
 Number of institutions involved
 Need agreement among more people at the start
 Some have already customized EMu for archives
 How to not be too disruptive to what people already have?
 Others don’t have anything yet
 Start from out of the box tabs?
 Customize new ones?

15. Modified process
 We’ve decided to focus on two or three major issues we’re all facing and try to
solve them
 Enable people already using a customized version to incorporate if they want
 For those who don’t have anything, review out of box tabs and tweak
 Include major issue fixes above
 Come up with requirements for those changes
 Discuss with Axiell
 Run by larger online Google group

16. Issues we’re tackling first
 Additional fields before and during accessioning
 Location tracking
 Cross-mapping standards across collections
 Level creation

17. Issue: Additional information at
accessioning
 Pre-accessioning information
 Extra tabs? Some have already
designed fields
 Document before processing
at the collection level
 Belongs in Accession record?

18. Issue: Locations
 How to manage locations for archival collections?
A level within a finding aid is conceptual – Collection, Series, Subseries, File or Item
Lowest levels are related to physical (usually in “Extent”) – Box, Folder (could be more than one)
Museum of the American Indian records
-Series 1: Directors
--Subseries 1.1: George Gustav Heye, 1863-1962
---Subseries 1A.1: Correspondence
----File = Early Years, 1895-1935 Box 1, Folder 1
 These are related to locations, such as “Room 32, Shelf A”

19. Issue: Cross-mapping standards
 Discussing multiple ways of cross-mapping standard terms across institutions

20. Issue: Simplify workflow
 How to simplify the creation of levels in finding aid

21. Interested?
 Stay informed?
 If you want to stay informed after the conference, join Google group
 It’s the first group we will vet suggested changes with
 Sign up sheet at the Registration desk
 Or if you feel strongly about being part of the workgroup, see me later at break
or the reception.
 Or if there is anything you would like to share – see me!

22. Questions?
Kara Lewis
Collections Information System Administrator/Analyst
lewiskm@si.edu
1-301-238-1471
@karamichelel