ArchivesSpace Accessions

Introduction

Basic Information [return to top]

The Basic Information section of an ArchivesSpace accession record helps archivists document the new acquisitions and also record key details about the nature and scope of materials. Completing this section is an important first step in creating an accession record; to ensure consistent and usable data, all staff must closely follow the conventions outlined below.

NOTE: Tool Tips are a customizable ArchivesSpace feature that the Bentley utilizes to provide tips and directions for filling out each field. The Tool Tip includes relevant information from the guidelines and, in many cases, links to each section. To make a Tool Tip appear, you may hover over the label to the left of the field. You may also click on the label and the Tool Tip will remain visible.  To make a Tool Tip disappear, click on the "x" symbol in the upper right-hand corner of the tip.

Title

Do not use this element

Identifier

ArchivesSpace will generate a numeric identifier when a new accession is created; it reflects an automatic increment of 1 over the current ID. This identifier, which is the Accession ID, is used to track accessions and is also employed in digital archives workflows that employ Archivematica.

Accession Date

ArchivesSpace will automatically complete this field with the current date when a new accession is created. Archivists may manually adjust the date by typing in the Accession Date field (using the format YYYYMMDD) or using the date picker.

Content Description

This free-text field should be used to record significant information about the nature and scope of an accession that will inform later decisions regarding the appraisal, arrangement, and description of materials.  Use this field to:

For digital material:

NOTE: It is important to specify the nature of the material. Does it contain born-digital or digitized content? Does it contain A/V material like audio CDs or DVDs?

Condition Description

This free-text field should be used to note any conservation issues or preservation concerns related to materials in the accession, including those specific to physical, analog, digital, or oversize materials.  Entering this information in a dedicated text field will help highlight and draw attention to the issues so that the Lead Archivist for Collections Management or processing staff may take appropriate steps.  The accessioning archivist should also make a conservation request through the Google Form.  When entering information, the accessioning archivist should be as specific as possible about the nature, severity, and extent of the problem.

Disposition

Use this free-text field to document how potential separations associated with the accession will be handled. This information should be taken directly from the Gift Agreement signed by the donor.  If the accession is an accrual and covered by an existing Gift Agreement, the accessioning archivist should refer back to the most current Gift Agreement. Typically, items are either destroyed or returned to the donor (though in some cases, they may be sent to a third party).

The options for separations include:

In some cases, these conditions apply to separations as a whole (e.g., all separations are to be destroyed). Sometimes different parts of separations are to be treated differently (e.g., donor would like the photographs returned; the rest can be destroyed). Note all instructions specific to the disposition of materials in this field. 

Provenance

This free-text field should be used to record the names (and positions or titles) of any individuals associated with the donor and/or creator who assisted with the transfer of materials.  This information will help field archivists or processors direct any questions that might arise about the handling of materials or the transfer itself.

 

Acquisition Type

This drop-down menu allows the accessioning archivist to indicate the type of acquisition:

Access Restrictions Note

This free-text field is used to note any restrictions to patron access that should be imposed on the materials due to Bentley policy (i.e., 20 year restriction for Executive Officer records), laws (e.g., HIPAA or FERPA), sensitive data (e.g., SSNs), or as specified in the Gift Agreement.  

NOTE: There is no need to check the associated “Access Restrictions?” checkbox. 

This field should also be used if there are just questions or even the possibility of access restrictions that might be enforced for materials in the collection. Skip this field if there are no known or potential access restrictions that apply to material in the accession.

Use Restrictions Note

This free-text field is used to note the copyright status of the accession as well as any restrictions to patron use specified in the Gift Agreement (such as limitations on reproducing materials).

NOTE: There is no need to check the associated “Use Restrictions?” checkbox.

The Bentley’s conventions for documenting copyright and/or use restrictions reflects the fact that 3rd party materials may be present in collections for which the donor was unable to transfer rights. Copy and paste one of the following statements that best applies to the accession. Note that you can click on the Use Restrictions Note Tool Tip to copy the standard text: 

If the Gift Agreement has yet to be signed or received, leave this field blank.

BHL Classifications

Enter at least one classification from the BHL Classification drop down menus to associate the accession with a particular collecting area. It is important to enter the appropriate classification for the accession, as this information is used to generate reports for DART and business intelligence purposes. The classifications that should be associated with an accession are:

Accessions with only UA or RCS classifications are excluded from DART reports. Accessions with either an MHC or FAC classification are included in DART reports. Multiple classifications can be added to a single accession (e.g., the personal papers of U-M faculty members may have both UA and FAC classifications). 

Gift Agreement Status

Select the appropriate gift agreement status from the drop down menu. Options include: on file, pending, sent, n/a, and other. Make sure to edit the gift agreement status when the status of the gift agreement changes, e.g. when a gift agreement that was pending has been signed and is on file.

Acknowledged

Check the Acknowledged check box when the donor has been acknowledged, verbally or in writing, for their donation to the Bentley. 

Baseline Candidate

Check the Baseline Candidate check box if the accession has been identified as a candidate for baseline processing.

Extents [return to top]

For physical material, record the extent of accession physical material in ArchivesSpace as described in the Extent guidelines.

NOTE: We are only interested in recording the extent of material after it has been rehoused into archival quality containers. If the extent after rehousing is drastically different from what was originally transferred, record information about the original housing in the Container Summary note (ex. received in three oversize plastic tubs).

NOTE: Likewise, we are only interested in recording the extent (i.e., the portion, number, type and container summary) of digital material after it has been transferred from removable media. Use the bag info to record the extent of an accession.

Agent Links [return to top]

General

An accession record should include the name(s) and contact information for the parties responsible for donation, transfer, and receipt of records. In case of collections of personal papers, include the name(s) and Contact Details for the donor(s). This information will be associated with an Accession Record as an Agent.

If papers are transferred by a third party representing the donor(s), such as family members, friends, attorneys, etc., the third parties’ names should be included as well. If the third parties are identified as the key contact for all future communications, the third party Contact Details should be included. In other cases, only filling out Contact Details for the donor will be sufficient.

In case of collections of records of university units or organizations (corporate entities), the accession record must contain the name(s) of person(s) responsible for the transfer of material and their contact information (if different from the record creators’ contact information).

Creating Agents

If you are creating a new Agent record, create a proper Agent for donors and permanent contacts (family members, attorneys, executive officers, etc., as well as organizations and university units). For other responsible parties (e.g., students or administrative assistants who packed and/or delivered the records), use a General Note field and natural language.

In the Accession Record scroll down to “Agent Links” and click on “Add Agent Link.” A form for entering Agents will open. Choose Role of “Source” in the drop-down menu. Relator is not a required indicator, but you can choose an appropriate term from the drop-down menu. Enter “Donor”. The term will appear in the field as you start typing it, or choose “Donor” from the drop-down menu.

Another drop-down menu will appear underneath, with options “Persons,” “Families,” “Corporate Entities,” “Software.” Most of Bentley donors will fall into the Persons and Corporate Entities categories. Choose Families only if donor is family estate. If more than one family member has the function of records donor, create individual agents for each person. Create Agents according to standard Bentley practice for creating Agents in ASpace.

Add Contact Details including, address, email, and telephone number. The Bentley produces regular reports from ArchivesSpace for the University's Donor Alumni Relationship Tool (DART), including names and contact information for donors of collections, so it is important to ensure that this information is as complete and up-to-date as possible.

New Donors

If the Agent is also a new donor, you will need to take the additional step of adding the Donor Details at the bottom of the Agent Links pop-up window.

The Bentley Historical Library uses a local ArchivesSpace plugin to add donor information to Agent records.

Each Donor Detail subrecord includes the following information:

Click the “Add Donor Detail” button.

NOTE: If you are creating a donor record for an existing donor with a known donor number, uncheck the “Automatically generate” checkbox and enter the donor number into the Donor Number text field. This may be necessary for a period of time after the migration of legacy accessions/donors from the Bentley’s previous accessions management application, BEAL. If the donor does not yet have an assigned donor number (as will often be the case), leave the check box checked and the ArchivesSpace application will automatically generate a new donor number.

If the DART LID is known, enter that information in the DART LID text field. It will otherwise be automatically added at a later time.

The BEAL Contact ID is a readonly field and will automatically be generated when the agent is saved.

Once the Agent record for the donor has been created, follow the steps above to associate it with an Accession record.

Browsing, Selecting, and Reviewing Agents

For existing donors, ASpace should have names and contact information for Agents who have donated materials in the past. In this case, instead of creating a new Agent record, existing donors can be linked to an accession record by adding the existing ArchivesSpace Agent record to the accession record’s Agent Links section.

First, click the "Add Agent Link" button, assign the agent link a Role of “Source,” then select “Browse” from the drop down menu next to the Agents search box:

On the Browse Agents popup, select “true” underneath the Donors facet to limit the results to only ArchivesSpace Agent records which correspond to BHL donor records: 

Finally, filter the results by searching for the donor’s name, donor number, or a combination of the two, select the checkbox associated with the Agent and click the “Link to Agents” button: 

When adding Agent records to Accessions, it is important to review all of the information associated with that Agent record to ensure that it is as up-to-date as possible. The Bentley produces regular reports from ArchivesSpace for the University's Donor Alumni Relationship Tool (DART), including names and contact information for donors of collections. To review the Agent's contact information, click on the linked Agent's name in the accession record and then click "View" to open the Agent record.

In the Agent record, review the Contact Details section for completeness and accuracy, editing the record to make any necessary modifications. These modifications might include updating phone numbers, email addresses, home or business addresses or, in some cases, deleting superfluous and/or incorrect Contact Details subrecords that were created during the BEAL to ArchivesSpace migration. Donors should have a single Contact Details subrecord containing the most up-to-date information to facilitate accurate reporting.

Related Resources [return to top]

The Related Resources section allows the accessioning archivist to add a link to an existing resource record.  The field is used to indicate that an accession should be added to a specific collection.

NOTE: If the donor of the accession is the same as the creator of the collection, a link is not necessary.

Under the "Related Resources" section, click the "Add Related Resources" button to add a search field. 

In the text box, begin typing in the name of the collection to see relevant resources.  When you see the corresponding resource, click on the title to add it to the field.  A link to the accession will also be displayed in resources record.

External Documents [return to top]

Link to submission documentation that accompanies accessions (e.g., box lists or other inventories, metadata spreadsheets, etc.) by creating adding an External Document.

First, save a copy of the submission documentation in the S:/ArchivesSpace/SubmissionDocumentation folder using the following convention. If you don't see a sub-folder inside the SubmissionDocumentation folder for the donor number, create it; likewise, if you don't see a sub-folder inside the donor number folder for the accession number, create it. When creating a filename for the file, be sure not to use any special characters (like /\?%*:|"<>.) or blank spaces in the filename):

S:/ArchivesSpace/SubmissionDocumentation/[DONOR#]/[ACCESSION#]/[Doc-Description_YYYYMMDD]

Then, add the External Document in ArchivesSpace, giving it a meaningful title and a link to its location with a file:/// prefix.

file:///S:/ArchivesSpace/SubmissionDocumentation/[DONOR#]/[ACCESSION#]/[Doc-Description_YYYYMMDD]

After saving the accession, you can download the External Document by right-clicking on the link and selecting "Copy Link Location" (Firefox) or "Copy Link Address" (Chrome).

Instances [return to top]

In order to manage barcodes for containers, to track locations for unprocessed materials, and to manage the Bentley’s physical storage locations, an Instance and an associated Top Container will need to be created for every physical container (e.g., box, folder, or volume) in an accession.

Containers

To create a bulk range of Instances and Top Containers to be associated with an accession, click the “Add Containers” button in the toolbar of an accession record. Select the Instance Type and Container Type, documented in the Instances guidelines, enter the start and end number for the range of containers that will be created, and click “Add Containers.” The accession record will refresh with new Instances and Top Containers.

NOTE: The following documentation describes the method for creating multiple instances at once.  If the accession only includes one box or one folder, follow the Bentley's general guidelines for creating instances.

NOTE: If you need to create multiple types of instances and containers (e.g., if an accession consists of a mix of boxes, folders, volumes, etc.), you will need to repeat this step for each type of container.

Barcodes and Locations

Once the necessary Instances have been added to an accession and the associated Top Containers have been created, containers should be barcoded and assigned locations. Click the gear icon at the top right and select “Manage Top Containers” from the drop down menu.

In the Accession search box, search for the Identifier of the relevant accession, select it, and click the “Search” button.

Select the resulting Top Containers to be barcoded, click the “Bulk Operations” button, and select “Rapid Barcode Entry” form the drop down.

Scan the barcode for each container in the “New Barcode” column of the appropriate row. When finished, click the “Update Rows” button to save the barcodes.

Once containers have been assigned locations in the stacks, enter the location information in the Basic Information > LocationInfo text box, noting the types and ranges of containers and the range of locations at which they are located on separate lines. For example, an accession of 3 boxes and 1 volume located at Y-292-A through Y-292-D would look like the following:

Digital Objects [return to top]

In the following steps, you will need to coordinate with the Archivist for Digital Curation.

NOTE: Once an accession has been processed, the processor should coordinate with the Archivist for Digital Curation to delete and remove the Digital Object from the Accession record. This will happen upon the deletion request for an Archivematica transfer from the backlog. Pull up the Digital Object (e.g., by clicking the link from the Accession record or searching for its UUID), and delete.

Deaccessions (Separations) [return to top]

The Bentley Historical Library uses the term “deaccessions” to refer to unprocessed accessioned materials that are formally deselected from processing all together.  In extremely rare cases, the Bentley may decide to transfer a processed collection to another institution or return material to the donor. Such instances also fall in the deaccessions category.

Bentley generally uses the term “separations” for materials that are not included in the final collection, or weeded during processing.

ArchivesSpace uses the term Deaccessions for both “separations” and “deaccessions.” In the majority of cases, processors will be recording separations under Deaccessions in ASpace.

Separations should be recorded within a corresponding Accession Record. If separations accumulated from multiple accessions and the originating accession is hard to indicate, record all separations under the latest accession. Separations-related activities are determined by the Gift Agreement. In most cases, refer to the Disposition note in the Basic Information section in order to determine how to appropriately handle deaccessions.

NOTE: If there are no separated materials, do not create a Deaccession record.

To records separations, click on the Add Deaccessions button in the Accession Record.

A form with multiple fields will open. If portions of deaccessioned materials are handled in separate ways (i.e., some materials are returned to the donor and other materials are destroyed) you may add multiple Deaccession fields. If this is the case, make sure to select the Portion as “Part” instead of “Whole,” which is the drop down field’s default selection.

Documenting Separations as a Whole

Use the Description field to outline the type(s) of materials being separated: widely accessible publications, photocopies, sensitive data (i.e., PII-containing materials), duplicates, miscellaneous items, 3-D objects, unrelated materials, personal medical records, monthly financial reports, tax returns, physically damaged materials, etc. When dealing with separated removable media, such as physically damaged media, duplicate files, or other out of scope materials refer to the Archivematica Clean-Up guidelines.

The Reason field will typically be left blank, unless additional justification is required.

It is important to indicate what happened with separations. This information is recorded in the Disposition field, indicate one of the following disposition options:

If donor has been contacted about separations, check the "Notification Given?" box. 

Deaccession Date

The Label is automatically populated as Deaccession, and should not be changed. When entering the Deaccession date, follow the ASpace Date guidelines. Use the date on which you are preparing the separation documentation as a temporary date if the materials are not destroyed immediately.

NOTE: The Deaccession date should be updated with the date that the material is destroyed or returned to the donor.

For Separations extent, use the general Extent guidelines to indicate the amount of separated materials.

Collection Management [return to top]

The accessioning archivist will fill out the following two fields of the Collection Management section: Processing Priority and Processing Status. The remaining sections will be filled out by the Lead Archivist for Collections Management. 

Processing Priority

Select the appropriate Processing Priority (High, Medium, Low) from the dropdown menu. The Processing Priority is determined by the field archivist responsible for the acquisition. 

Rights Determined?

If the rights status of the archival material is known, check this box. If the rights of the material is unknown or cannot be determined, do not check this box.

Processing Plan

The Processing Plan is written by the person assigned to process the collection. See Processing Levels and Planning for instructions on how to develop a plan.  This document, once approved by the Lead Archivist for Collections Management, should be uploaded to the Accession Record as an External Document.  The processing plan should be saved on the S drive: S:Curation/Processing/Processing Plans/yyyy

Save individual processing plans using the Accession ID as the filename. If a given accession is processed partially (for example, 5 boxes out of 25), add _1 _2 _3, etc.

Processors Once the Lead Archivist for Collection Management assigns the material to be processed, enter the person(s) name (Last name, first name) in this field. Indicate the date the collection was assigned in the following format: YYYY-MM-DD. If multiple people are assigned to process a collection, or if the individual assigned the collection leaves before processing is complete, list all individuals involved in the processing of material, separating names with a semicolon.

Total Processing Hours Once arrangement and description are complete, this field will be updated by the Lead Archivist for Collection Management. Funding Source The funding source should only be noted in exceptional cases, such as if a processing project is grant funded. Processing Status The accessioning archivist should select the Processing Status for the collection when material is initially received. In most cases this will be “backlog.” When the collection is assigned to a processor, the Lead Archivist for Collection Management, will update this field to indicate that the material is “in progress” and “complete” one the finding aid (and all other descriptive tools) is posted online. Dropdown options include: completed, in progress, and backlog.

Events [return to top]

ArchivesSpace uses a feature called Events, to link a person and date with a specific step in the accessioning workflow. For example, an Event might note that the accessioning archivist filed the signed Gift Agreement on a specific date, or that the Lead Archivist for Collections Management assigned the accession to be processed on a specific date.

Upon the creation of an Accession Record, an Event for “Custody Transfer” will automatically be created. This should be updated following the guidelines below. Events for “Processing Started” and “Processing Completed” should be created by the Lead Archivist for Collections Management.

Navigating to Events

Once the accessioning archivist has filled out the New Accession fields, click the “Save” button. To access and edit the Events you must be in “View” mode. To do this, click on the Accession ID (the Identifier) in the breadcrumb trail in the top left corner of the screen, as shown below, to exit edit mode.

This will display the filled out accession fields, as well as the Event for  “Custody Transfer” at the bottom of the page. Click “Edit” on the right side of the Event in order to update the information for the Event. The Event will be automatically created with an outcome of "Fail." This is to note that the Event has not been completed and will be updated in the guidelines below.

NOTE: If you need to update an Event in a previously created accession, when you find the correct accession, select “View” from the search results page. Remember, while Events are associated with Accession Records, they are only accessible when an Accession Record is in “View” mode, not “Edit” mode.

Creating Events

Because most of the Events will be automatically generated, typically only the Lead Archivist for Collections Management will need to create new Events at the start and end of processing.

To create an Event, navigate to the relevant accession and click the “Add Event” button at the top of the page. Click the drop-down to select an action which you would like to create an Event for and click “Add Event.”

Custody Transfer

The Custody Transfer Event will be used to make note of the date that the records or material were received by the Bentley in some capacity, as well as the field archivist responsible for it. Other "archival control" events (e.g., a successful transfer in Archivematica, reboxing and transfer to a semi-permanent unprocessed location in the stacks, etc.) will be indicated in different ways.

Basic Information

When the material has been brought the Bentley, the Outcome should be changed to “Pass.”

Event Date/Time

Under the Date/Time Specifier drop-down “UTC Timestamp” should be selected. In the free-text field below it, the accessioning archivist should fill in the date that the accession was brought to the Bentley in the “YYYY-MM-DD” format.

Agent Links

Under the Agent Links section, the role of “Field Archivist” should be selected. The Agent is the Bentley staff member primarily responsible for bringing in the accession.

Record Links

No additional Record Links should be added to this Event

Processing Started

The Processing Started Event is used to note that a processor has been assigned the collection and has begun processing it.

NOTE: This Event will be created by the Lead Archivist for Collections Management when the accession has been assigned for processing.

Basic Information

When the accession has been assigned for processing, the Outcome should be changed to “Pass.”

Event Date/Time

Under the Date/Time Specifier drop-down “UTC Timestamp” should be selected. In the free-text field below it, the Lead Archivist should fill in the date that the accession had been assigned for processing in the “YYYY-MM-DD” format.

Agent Links

Under the Agent Links section, the role of “Authorizer” should be selected, with the agent as the Bentley staff member who assigned the accession to a processor, typically the Lead Archivist for Collections Management.

Record Links

The Record Links are used to note if multiple accessions from the same donor are being processed simultaneously. The Record Link field will automatically be filled in with the created accession as the source for the Event.

To add an additional accession, press the plus sign at the bottom of the Record Links section (or the “Add Record Link” button), and change the “Role” drop--down to “Source”. In the “Record” field begin typing in the Accession ID and select it when it appears. Alternatively, clicking the down arrow to the right of the field can allow the accessioning archivist to browse for the correct accession.

Processing Completed

The Processing Completed Event is used to note that the processing of the accession has been completed.

NOTE: This Event will be created by the Lead Archivist for Collections Management when processing is completed.

Basic Information

When the accession has been processed, the Outcome should be changed to “Pass.”

Event Date/Time

Under the Date/Time Specifier drop-down “UTC Timestamp” should be selected. In the free-text field below it, the Lead Archivist should fill in the date that the accession had been processed in the “YYYY-MM-DD” format.

Agent Links

Under the Agent Links section, the role of “Authorizer” should be selected, with the Agent as the Bentley staff member who reviews, approves, and exports the completed finding aid, typically the Lead Archivist for Collections Management.

Record Links

The Record Links are used to note if multiple accessions were processed simultaneously, and have all been completed. The Record Link field will automatically be filled in with the created accession as the source for the Event.

To add an additional accession, press the plus sign at the bottom of the Record Links section (or the “Add Record Link” button), and change the “Role” drop--down to “Source”. In the “Record” field begin typing in the Accession ID and select it when it appears. Alternatively, clicking the down arrow to the right of the field can allow the accessioning archivist to browse for the correct accession. 

Searching Accession Records [return to top]

Searching for a particular accession or donor record in ArchivesSpace might best be accomplished using a number of different searching strategies. Due to the varied nature of the Bentley's accessions data and the particular ways in which metadata is indexed and searchable in ArchivesSpace, there is no single searching strategy that will work in all cases. Below are several different search strategies and some examples of when those particular strategies might be useful.

BHL Accession Search Results

The Bentley uses a local ArchivesSpace plugin to customize the display of search results for accessions in order to make search results more user friendly and to display more pertinent information on the accession search results page. To use this functionality, ensure that you begin your accession search by clicking Browse > Accessions. Entering a search in the "Search All Records" search box on the ArchivesSpace front page will not return results formatted using the Bentley's customizations.

The Bentley's custom search results will display the following information for an accession:

General Searching Tips

Keyword Searching

To search for text appearing in any field in an accession record, enter a keyword search in the "Filter by text" search box on the top left and click the search button.

Searching by Donor Information

There are several ways to locate accessions based on donor information. Searches for a donor name or donor number should return relevant results. It is worth noting that donor names, especially for organizations, may not be spelled out in the exact way in which they are mostly likely to be searched. For example, a search for "Department of English" would not return all results associated with the University of Michigan's Department of English agent record, as the agent's name in ArchivesSpace is "Dept. of English." Searches by donor name may need to be refined in order to return all of the relevant results. 

A useful strategy for finding all accession records associated with a particular donor is to perform a broad search that will return many likely irrelevant results, find one accession record from the donor, and click the "view all from donor" link next to the donor's name in the search result. In the examples below, a search for 'department of english' returned 13,100 results. The first result is from the "University of Michigan. Dept. of English" donor. Clicking "view all from donor" adds a filter to the search to include only accessions from that particular source, yielding a smaller set of 18 results.

A search for 'department of english'

A filtered search for a source of 'University of Michigan. Dept. of English'

Advanced Search

ArchivesSpace provides the ability, through its advanced search functionality, to search for information stored in particular fields, as opposed to keyword searching which searches across all fields. To perform an advanced search, click the arrow icon next to the "Search All Records" text box at the top of the application, select the field to search on from the drop down menu, enter your query, and click the "Search" button.

The two advanced search fields that might be useful for locating donors or accession records are Identifier and Donor Number.

Please note that advanced search results display with the default ArchivesSpace search results template, not the Bentley's custom accessions search results template.

Faceting Search Results

Use facets along the left side of the accessions search results page to facet the results by a few key fields. Current available facets are:

Please note: facets are stackable. For example, you could apply facets for processing status and processing priority at the same time to limit your search to high priority backlog accessions.

Generating Reports [return to top]

To access the ArchivesSpace Reports section, click the gear icon near the top right of the ArchivesSpace application and select "Reports" 

On the Reports page, scroll down to the very bottom to find the Bentley's ArchivesSpace Reports, which all begin with "BHL." 

Please note that the default ArchivesSpace Reports, listed above the Bentley's reports, may or may not perform a query that outputs the data that you are looking for. If any of the default ArchivesSpace report names sound like they might produce a report that is valuable to you, consult with the Lead Archivist for Collections Management, the Archivist for Metadata and Digital Projects, or another member of the Bentley's ArchivesSpace team to determine if the default report queries the ArchivesSpace database in a way that is consistent with the Bentley's use of the ArchivesSpace accessioning data model or if a separate customized report will be necessary.

To generate a report, click the "Show Description" button next to the relevant report, enter any parameters as necessary, choose the desired format for the report (JSON, CSV, Excel spreadsheet, HTML, or PDF), click the "Select" button, and then click the "Queue Job" button. Note that the Format option defaults to JSON; in most cases, this should be changed to a different format for readability.

Clicking the "Queue Job" button will redirect you to a job status page for the report that you are generating. Once the application has finished generating the report, click the "Refresh Page" button if necessary and then click the Download Report link to save the report to your computer.

Detailed explanations of the custom reports that the Bentley has currently implemented can be found below. Detailed information about additional reports will be added to this documentation as they are created.

BHL Accessions Extent Report

This report provides a sum for each extent type (linear feet, GB, TB, etc.) associated with accession records from within a given time period. The available parameters for this report, "From" and "To," are optional parameters to specify the range of accession dates for which the report will tally extent information. To generate a report for all accessions from a given date, leave the "To" parameter blank, to generate a report for all accessions up to a given date, leave the "From" parameter blank, and to generate a report for all accessions, leave both parameters blank.

BHL Accessions Report

This report is a customizable report that will output detailed information about accessions that match a variety of parameters. The report that is generated will include a row for each accession that matches the supplied parameters, with each row container that accession's identifier, donor name, donor number, accession date, content description, processing status, processing priority, classifications, extent information, location, and field archivist. The available parameters include:

Note that leaving a given parameter blank will produce a report for accessions that match any value for that parameter. All of the parameters are optional and can be combined. Example reports that can be generated using some, all, or none of the available parameters include "high priority backlog MHC accessions from June 2017," "all UA accessions, regardless of processing status, processing priority, or accession date," and all accessions from a particular donor. To generate a report of all accessions from a particular donor, follow instructions above for browsing agents, faceting by donors, and searching for a particular agent record.

BHL DART Report

This report will generate a report for submission to U-M's Donor Alumni Relationship Tool (DART) for all non-University accessions from within a given time period. The output of this report is based on the template that is required for submitting information to DART, and will include a row for each accession from within the specified time period with the DART LID (if known), donor name and donor contact information for each accession. The accessions included in the report are those that have an accession date within the specified time period and which have at least one classification matching MHC (Michigan Historical Collections) or FAC (Faculty).

BHL non-DART Accessions Report

This report generates a report containing accessions from within a specified time period that are not included on the BHL DART Report (detailed above). Accessions included on this report include those that have no classifications at all or those that have only UA (University Archives) or RCS (Records Center Storage) classifications. This report is primarily useful to review accessions that were omitted from the DART report to ensure that all accessions are reported to DART.