Kevin LongDigital Data Curator, Inspiring Ireland 1916 Project, Digital Repository of Ireland

Organising Your Collection

Digital Repository of IrelandDRI is a trusted digital repository for Humanities and Social Sciences Data in Ireland, launched June 2015

• Provides preservation and access to digital collections

• Born digital and digitised collections including maps, photographs, letters,

audio-visual, sound, books, oral histories, paintings..

repository.dri.ie

Why do collections need to be organised?

Gain intellectual control over your holdings

Facilitate access

Enhance access when collections are properly organised

Anticipate accruals

Allow further processing for example digitisation, disposal

Why organise collections in the DRI Repository

• Greater visibility for your organisation (one large collection versus multiple collections)

• Direct researchers towards material of interest (eg. faceting material by type, subjects)

• Allow researchers to find objects more easily

• Divide material according to theme, type, funder, project

• Group together material with similar access conditions

• Group together material with similar rights or licences

Organising your collections

An archivist’s approach to arranging collections

How can collections be organised in the Digital Repository of Ireland?

• The whole of the documents made and received by a juridical or physical person or organisation in the conduct of affairs, and preserved. (International Council on Archives)

• Archives can be collected or assembled by an organisation (or a researcher)

What is an archive?

Core principles in archival arrangement and description

Principle of provenance: The basic principle that records/archives of the same provenance must not be intermingled with those of any other provenance; frequently referred to as "respect des fonds".

Principle of original order: The principle that archives of a single provenance should retain the arrangement (including the reference numbers) established by the creator in order to preserve existing relationships and evidential significance and the usefulness of finding aids of the creator.

Arranging Archives: assessing a new collection• Undertake a review of general content and the condition of

records.

• Make note of a general overview of arrangement.

• Gather information from the donor on context of the collection’s creation.

• Provenance: is all content from same person or organisation?

• Order of collection: identify major groupings and sub-groupings, the filing order, missing areas and gaps. These will be based on similar activities or function

• Physical extent and condition: how much, what types of material?

Planning arrangement, imposing order

Arrangement helps the archivist to gain intellectual control over the collection prior to description.

If the collection is well ordered, try to maintain original order where possible. Group records into series and sub-series, maintain files, decide whether to catalogue to item level.

If the collection has no order, survey the items and files, look for relationships between items keeping the functions and activities of the creator in mind.

• ISAD(G) – an international standard for describing archives (but not the only one, eg. DACS, IGAD)

• Lists elements to be used, and how to fill them in – a framework, not totally prescriptive

• 26 elements, 6 are mandatory (Reference code, Title, Name of Creator, Dates of Creation, Extent of the Unit of Description, Level of description)

• Describes collections which are arranged hierarchically.

ISAD(G): International Standard for Archival Description (General)

What are the levels of arrangement?

FONDS: The collection as a whole – all items associated with a single creator

SUB-FONDS: All records of an administrative sub-unit of the organisation which created the fonds

SERIES: A group of records created or accumulated from the same function, activity or subject

SUB-SERIES: records within a series that are readily identifiable as a subordinate or dependent entity on the basis of classification or filing, physical form or content.

What are the levels of arrangement?

FILE: documents kept together in a way that reflects particular activities, subjects, etc. Files may also have sub-files (which should not be confused with items). (NB: EAD does not allow you to attach digital assets to File level descriptions)

ITEM: the smallest descriptive unit. Items are intellectual - not physical - units and can include many separate things. A letter in a correspondence file is an item, as is a ledger book, a photograph or an architectural drawing, even though these items may have many separate pages.

Example: The Michael Healy collection

The collection comprises a portion of the 1916 diary of the stained glass artist, painter and illustrator, Michael Healy (1873-1941); specifically it is the period from 20th April to 17th May which encompasses the days before the Rising, the event itself, and the aftermath.

The collection is supplemented with related material gathered and prepared by art historian Dr. David Caron in the course of his Doctoral research on the work of Michael Healy. This material includes typed transcripts of each diary page, a watercolour image of a design for a stained glass window for Clongowes College, and an illustration of the Túr Gloine studio made by the artist Patrick Pollen.

Example: The Michael Healy collection

All images used with permission of NIVAL, NCAD

Example: The Michael Healy collectionMichael Healy Collection (Fonds/Collection)

Michael Healy Diary Pages (Series/sub-collection)

Research material relating to Michael Healy (Series/sub-collection)

Michael Healy stained glass designs (Series/sub-collection)

Diary page

Diary page Clongowes sketch

Clongowes photograph

David Caron transcripts (Sub-series/sub-collection)

Transcript Transcript

Transcript

Patrick Pollen Túr Gloine drawing

Arranging archives

Are related items/files grouped together in a meaningful way?

Are series and files arranged to allow expansion if further accruals occur?

How does the arrangement relate to the original order of the documents?

How does the arrangement relate to the context of creation? Who created or collected the records?

Does the arrangement reflect the original collection, or the digitised one?

https://repository.dri.ie/pages/about_lifecycle

Creating Your Collection• Every object must be part of a Collection – it’s up to you how you divide

your objects. Collections can also be divided into sub-collections.

• Collections are required whether you use Dublin Core, MODS, EAD or MARC.

• Collection metadata is similar to object metadata – Title, Date, Creator, Description, Subjects etc.

• Collections require a cover image that represents the collection.

• Collections can be used to designate particular access permissions or licences for objects.

Applying access permissions

All metadata in the Repository is publicly accessible to every user and licensed as CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution Only)

Access options:1. Anyone can see the metadata and assets, anyone can download your master asset.2. Anyone can see the metadata and assets, no one can download your master (only the surrogate asset).3. Anyone can see your metadata, but not the assets - unless they are registered and logged in users.4. Anyone can see your metadata, but not the assets, and they can contact you via a request button in the Repository and ask you to give them access.

Applying access permissions

Applying a licence

Digital Object Identifiers

• Persistent identifier of a digital object on the web

• Allows easy citation of data, and for usage and impact to be tracked

• In the DRI, DOIs are in the form: http://dx.doi.org/10.7486/XXXXX

• Requires metadata for the DataCite metadata store:

Conclusions

• Plan arrangement before cataloguing and before deposit with DRI

• Anticipate future development of the collection

• Consider which users may wish to access your material – how can they find what they’re looking for easily?

• How will your arrangment impact how your collections are displayed in DRI?

• There is no “right” way to organise your collections!

Further readingInternational Standard for Archival Description (General): http://www.icacds.org.uk/eng/ISAD(G).pdf

A Manual for Small Archives: http://aabc.ca/media/6069/manualforsmallarchives.pdf

Archive Principles and Practice: an introduction to archives for nonarchivists: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/archive-principles-and-practice-an-introduction-to-archives-for-non-archivists.pdf

@beck_grant@dri_ireland

r.grant@ria.ie

www.repository.dri.ie

The content of this presentation is licensed as CC-BY. Please attribute to Rebecca Grant, Digital Archivist, Digital Repository of Ireland, 2015.