Sara Calkins

Case Study 5
LIS 881
To whom it may concern,
The University Archive and the Historical Research Center are critical to the university
through our mission to preserve the materials that record the workings and creations of both the
university and the outside community. As we do not have a records management department
within the university, it falls on the archive to store past documentation on the operations of the
university, providing knowledge for not only academic research, but also ensuring continuity in
how the university runs and responds to crises. Equally as important as collecting and preserving
these materials, however, is providing access to them for staff, students, and the public. This
cannot be done effectively without a functional method of managing collection development and
creating and storing metadata at the archival level, as well as a public interface.
Our current internal system of SharePoint, while working sufficiently for administrative
communications and operations, cannot provide the functionality, interface, or technical specifics
required to be successful in managing and sharing archival information. SharePoint no longer
supports its public website feature, has little to no ability to customize, and its search function, a
critical aspect of information management, is reported to be difficult at best without
complicated modifications (Gaille). In addition, SharePoint only connects internally, while an
independent Archival Content Management System would provide us with the ability to share
information with the greater academic community through the creation of relevant metadata that

could be shared broadly. This ability to share work would benefit other academic and historical
repositories as well as ourselves.
The Archival Content Management System we have in mind, ArchivesSpace, is open
source and community developed, meaning the user community constantly provides feedback
and updates, making the program extremely responsive to user needs. The archival user
community additionally provides a wealth of information as to what collections other
repositories have, allowing for us to work with other institutions and share our knowledge base.
This kind of responsiveness and user community cannot be provided as easily by SharePoint, a
component of major company like Microsoft.
A merger of what many call the two best Archival Content Management Systems in the
field, Archon and Archivists Toolkit, ArchivesSpace was designed by archivists for archivists,
making it uniquely suited to fit the needs of the University Archive and the Historical Research
Center, from collection management records to the generation and sharing of metadata. From the
very start, ArchivesSpace simplifies the process of entering a record by standardizing the
information input options and then generating the requested metadata accordingly, a huge
timesaver for our limited staff and interns. From there, the program can manage the entire
lifecycle of materials from accessioning through to its final location in the archive or even
possible deaccessioning. This kind of event tracking makes it much simpler to locate items
within the archive, as well as troubleshoot where things went wrong if troubles arise in the
process. ArchivesSpace also provides separate website interfaces for staff and the public,
allowing for the public web interface SharePoint no longer supports. This is a critical element in
promoting awareness of what collections the University Archive and Historical Research Center

hold and providing access to the items within them to users, one of the primary goals in having
an archive in the first place.
But while the primary functions of ArchivesSpace are molded for an archivists needs,
the program is also, according to its website, designed to provide access to collections to all
organizational users, not just staff. According to the company, [ArchivesSpace] integrates the
necessary, internal archival management functions with a public interface to those collections
and, as with other systems, is an investment for the entire organization (ArchivesSpace FAQ).
This investment, which would include a user-friendly interface, automatic generation of
shareable metadata, and numerous customization options to fit the precise needs of our
repositories, is critical to the optimization of the mission and goals of both the University
Archives and the Historical Research Center as well as the university as a whole.
The process of implementing this system will of course be a group effort between the
staff of the University Archive, the Historical Research Center, and the IT department. Before
the program can even be implemented into our current IT structure, funds must first be requested
for the membership fee. While the software itself is free to download and use, membership
provides technical support, training, and community interaction and involvement, all of which
are vital aspects of ArchivesSpaces value to the university. As a medium sized university, our
fee would likely be $3000, a cost that will be split between the budgets of the University Archive
and the Historical Research Center.
Once this funding is secured, a meeting should be called with the primary staff involved
in all three departments to discuss together how the space needed to store the data generated by
the application will be provided. Preferably, server space would be allotted to the University
Archives and the Historical Research Center to store this data in separate but interrelated storage

within the scope of the universitys server space. The two departments will also be listed as
separate repositories within ArchivesSpace to better distinguish to users where physical materials
can be located. Cloud storage and outside hosting are also options through ArchivesSpace, but
we believe the most secure option would be to keep the information housed at the university. In
addition to the server space needed, the application itself (approximately 1 GB) will need to be
installed on 2-4 staff computers in both the University Archive and the Historical Research
Center, with a total of 4-8 staff computers having the program available at the beginning of the
implementation process.
ArchivesSpace has import and migration functions for multiple forms of data, making the
transfer of information into the system a much faster process than may be suspected. Any
existing metadata from the finding aids of current collections would be the first information
entered into the program, with unprocessed finding aids following. After tutorials from the
ArchivesSpace user community and archives staff, this would primarily be the work of interns in
both the University Archive and Historical Research Center, with some assistance from the
archivist and assistant as they continue to perform their usual duties. The full migration of
archival information to ArchivesSpace may take a few months.
After the collections finding aids have been entered into the system, the application
should be downloaded to additional computers throughout the university system, starting with
any computers housed in the University Archive and Historical Research Center and library staff
computers. From there, additional desktops in the main library should have the public interface
of the program installed, while administrative staff throughout the university should be provided
the option to install the staff interface on their individual computers should they wish to have it.
A staff training session, led by the archives staff, will be held for staff at this time, and a tutorial

will be created to help students and other patrons utilize the public interface to search the
archives. When new collections are attained by the University Archive or Historical Research
Center, finding aids will be developed by the archivist and assistant. Interns will then input the
information contained in these finding aids into ArchivesSpace for public use.
Although it may be a time consuming process, we believe that the implementation of
ArchivesSpace as the archival content management system for the University Archive and
Historical Research Center is the best possible option for our departments to effectively track and
share information on the materials in our collections, whether they be physical, digitized, or born
digital. It is only through the use of such a system that we will be able to successfully do our jobs
of properly maintaining university collections and providing the public access to the information
they contain.
Sincerely,
Sara Calkins

Works Cited
FAQ. ArchivesSpace. 20 April 2016. <http://archivesspace.org/faq>
Gaille, Brandon. 12 SharePoint Pros and Cons. Brandon Gaille, Marketing Expert & Blogmaster. 20
April 2016. <http://brandongaille.com/12-sharepoint-pros-and-cons/>