Getting Started for Archivists¶
Archivists are staff members and volunteers who maintain a Digital Archive collection. They have a user name and password that lets them log in and see all public items in the collection as well as non-public items and private fields. They can add new items, edit existing items, attach images and PDF files to items, edit vocabularies, and establish relationships among items. An archivist cannot make changes to a Digital Archive installation unless they log in as an Administrator.
To get started using the Digital Archive as an archivist:
- Learn what archivists can do by reading the sections below
- Learn about special features for archivists
- Login to the Digital Archive
- Add a new item
- Edit an existing item
- Duplicate an item
- Delete an item
- Attach an image or PDF file to an item
After you are comfortable working with items:
- Learn about relationships
- Add a relationship to an item
- Learn about the Common Vocabulary
- Learn about best practices
What an archivist can do with the Digital Archive:
- Search the collection and work with search results
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An archivist can do everything that a public (not logged-in) user can do:
- Login to the Digital Archive
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An archivist has a user name and password that they use to login to the Digital Archive.
You must be logged-in to perform any of the tasks described on the rest of this page. - See non-public items and private metadata fields
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An archivist can search and view all of the data in their organization's Digital Archive. In contrast, a public user can only search public items and fields.
An archivist that is logged in to their organization's Digital Archive cannot see non-public data in another organization's Digital Archive.
- Edit items in the collection
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An archivist can edit the metadata for every item in the collection. An archivist can make an item public or non-public. They can also delete an item.
If you are not familiar with the terms item and metadata, see Digital Archive concepts.
To learn about public and non-public items, read about what gets searched. - Delete items from the collection
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An archivist can delete an item from the collection.
- Add new items to the collection
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An archivist can add a new item to the collection and control whether it is public or non-public. The can also attach images and PDF files to the new item.
- Attach images and PDF files to items
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An archivist can attach images and/or PDF files to an item. They can also remove an attachment and control the order in which attachment thumbnails appear on the item's page.
If you are not familiar with item attachments, see Digital Archive concepts.
An archivist is responsible for managing the archival copies, meaning the full-sized versions, of their digital assets. The Digital Archive only stores web-sized images and does not provide features for managing archival files. Every organization should have a scheme in place for managing and protecting these assets.
- Create relationships among items
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An archivist can establish relationships among items in the collection. For example, they can relate all the photographs of a specific person to an item containing information about that person. They can also edit existing relationships and remove relationships.
Relationships are by far the most sophisticated feature of the Digital Archive; however, the mechanics of adding relationships is fast, easy, and fun once you have a thorough understanding of how relationships work.
Relationships change a site from ordinary to extraordinary and archivists should make an effort to learn how to use this important feature.
- Edit vocabularies
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An archivist can edit the terms used for metadata fields that use a vocabulary. They can also create new vocabularies for fields that are unique to their site such as a Status field.
All Digital Archive sites use vocabularies for these fields:- Type
- Subject
- Place
- Rights