As a student studying Archives, it's a given that Archivist's Toolkit, Archon, and ArchivesSpace register in my vocabulary as a professional buzz words or phrases. However, because Indiana University does not employ Archivist's Toolkit or Archon in electronic description of its archival materials, and Archivesspace remains a plan in the making, the concept remains in the abstract for me. For this reason, I thought that delving into the applications' documentation would make for an excellent blog post in preparation for a component of archival processing that I may encounter in my future career. Though we dabbled in these technologies during my Introduction to Archives course in Fall 2009, I think I could use a more in-depth refresher.
For anyone not familiar, I will provide a brief overview of the various technologies:
Archivists' Toolkit (AT) is an open source application created "for archivists by archivists"--more specifically, it was created by the University of California San Diego Libraries, the New York University Libraries, and the Five Colleges, Inc. Libraries thanks to a Mellon Foundation grant. It operates on a web-based interface, can be networked or individual, and can be locally customized for tailored input and/or output. Originally released as Version 1.0 in 2006 with the latest updated (2.0 Update 8) released in October 2010, AT is the "first open source archival data management system to provide broad, integrated support for the management of archives" (archiviststoolkit.org). The application is meant to be easily accessible by archives staff for collection management and creation/maintenance of metadata to support digitally described archival collections. In broad terms, the goals of AT include: support processing and materials access, promote standardization of data and metadata, increase staff efficiency of efforts towards electronic description, and make training easier, thus more cost effective.
Simply put, Archivists Toolkit is a management tool which supports archival management as applied by individual institutions. This includes input information--such as accessions, description at varying levels, authority control, and physical location--as well as access outputs--such as digital finding aids, MARC catalog records, statistics, reports, etc. Because of AT's open access on the web, it is meant to be a point of consensus upon which standards may evolve to a greater extent, perhaps transforming into an online Union Database of sorts through which holdings could be compared and searched in a "one stop shopping" sense (pardon my cliche). Rather than rely on "home grown" databases or methods for accession, ead encoding, finding aid creating, etc., the goal is to create an all-purpose tool which will save time and money while decreasing redundance. To help interested potential implementers, the AT site includes a number of presentations given at professional group meetings, workshops--some of which are available in text, interactive forums, and and a wiki. All in all, it seems straightforward enough for someone such as myself to learn the technology simply through user-friendly documentation.
According to the project's website, which lists self-identified institutions currently employing AT, use varies by state, with 18 repositories listed for California and a whopping zero from Indiana. It is likely that not all users are officially listed on the site, however it is clear that the technology has not taken off with the majority as of yet, though I suspect this is because it is still under development to some extent.
Archon, on the other hand, is more focused as an output software. This technology, as developed by my undergraduate alma mater, the University of Illinois, is touted as an "award-winning software." To quote the Archon website:
"It automatically publishes archival descriptive information and digital archival objects in a user-friendly website. With Archon, there is no need to encode a finding aid, input a catalog record, or program a stylesheet. Archon's powerful scripts will automatically make everything in the system searchable and browsable on your repository's website!"
The Archon site is a bit more basic than that of AT, but this makes it easier to navigate for core information. The site is more "user friendly" to an interested archivist, whereas the AT site is more interested in providing as much information as possible to potential users. Still, the Archon site includes application features, documentation and reports, forums, and listserv access in an accessible format that leaves me much less overwhelmed. From what I gather (and through some helpful pointers via a handy slideshow by Brad Westbook at the ALCTS forum of the 2011 ALA midwinter meeting), Archon differs from Archivists toolkit in that it was developed by a single institution, focused more on end-user web access to finding aids and/or digital content, and is a web application. It seems to be less dynamic in terms of front-end description than AT, however the public interface provides a fantastically streamlined approach to online collection access. If I understand it correctly, Archon provides a relatively complex web interface and search capabilities with very little technical knowledge or effort by the individual performing metadata input. A special administrative interface simplifies editing for archives staff, allowing one to view and change the completed finding aid information, including sections which would not appear to a general public user and make changes as appropriate. The Archon User Manual includes a robust "how-to" tutorial, including marked up screen shots which take the potential implementer through the technology step by step. Though the list of Archon implementers does not look quite as long as that for AT, it is clearly in place at a number of major archival institutions including universities, historical societies, even the San Diego Zoo!
In light of the strengths and weaknesses of both Archivists Toolkit and Archon, the two teams (NYU Libraries and UC San Diego from AT, University of Illinois from Archon) are at present working together to create a "next-generation archives management application" which will meld the best features of both technologies. This hybrid is deemed ArchivesSpace--I'm assuming this name is in relation to the Dspace of the digital library realm. The team will also look to solidify a foresighted plan to ensure a low cost for future application maintenance/administration, interoperability with other archive and digital library applications, and generally improve upon the technological sustainability of the project to avoid the need for painstaking migration in the near future. At present, publicly available documentation for ArchivesSpace includes technical documents, specifications for various types of records, and the latest updates on AT and Archon themselves.
All in all, ArchivesSpace looks like it is going to be a fantastic resource that I hope to use in my future career. Its dynamic, user and archivist friendly design sounds as if it will be accessible and appropriate for archivists at institutions of varying sizes and collection focuses. Surely I did not do it, or the other two related technologies, justice in this blog post, but I think I gained a more immediate awareness of the major differences and interrelationships which will shape the online archival landscape in the future. Theoretically, a tool such as ArchivesSpace could eliminate, for example, a university archives' dependence upon a digital library or IT department to assist in enabling an online presence for collections. Independence sounds great to me. I signed myself up for the ArchivesSpace google group to keep abreast of changes as they come along and look forward to its anticipated release in the next year or two!
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