Locations and Location Profiles

• Avoid placing heavy boxes on shelves on higher shelves (i.e., shelves above one's chest). This could pose a hazard for reference staff retrieving the box(s).

• Avoid placing unhoused volumes or oversize boxes on bottom shelves close to the floor. These materials could be more easily damaged by staff, who could accidentally kick or brush against the material as they move among the shelves.

To associate a location with a top container:

• Identify the place(s) in the stack(s) to place the box(s).

• Navigate to the Instances form of the accession or archival object record (public link) associated with the top container.

• Click on the linked top container, and then "View". This will redirect the archivist to the record for that specific top container.

• Select "Edit".

• In the Location form, click "Add Location" (public link).

• Select a "Status" from the drop-down menu. This will typically be "Current".

• Select a "Start Date," which is the date that the material was placed on the shelf.

• In the "Location" field, find an available location by either typing a description of the location into the field to search for locations or using the drop-down arrow to browse locations (public link).

• After selecting an appropriate location, select "Save Top Container".

It is not efficient to manually associate locations with top containers if more than 10 top containers need to be updated. In such cases, it is advised that the archivist use the "Manage Top Containers" feature to rapidly add or update locations. To do this:

• Click on the gear drop-down at the top of the page and select "Manage Top Containers" (public link).

• Use the search feature to search for the specific top container(s) associated with a particular resource, accession, barcode, etc.

• Once the top container(s) have been located, select the top container(s) to be updated.

• Click on "Bulk operations", followed by either "Update Locations: Single Location" or "Update Locations: Multiple Locations" (public link). If the archivist wants to change all selected top containers to the same location, use the "Single Location" option. Otherwise, use the "Multiple Locations" option. 

• Search or browse for, and then select, the appropriate location(s). 

• When finished, click "Update [n] records".

If the archivist plans on updating several top containers, they should make sure to de-select the containers that were just updated!

The Lead Archivist for Imaging and Infrastructure is responsible for creating new locations. Consult with them if it is necessary to create a new location profile.

Locations and location profiles will only rarely need to be created. Additionally, any changes to the physical shelves (e.g. removing a shelf or changing the space between shelves) will throw off the entire location management functionality.