aspace-import-excel

An ArchivesSpace plugin to support the bulk uploading via Excel SpreadSheet of Archival Objects and (optionally) their associated Creator Agents, Top Containers, Subjects, Digital Objects etc.

Also supports the import of spreadsheets that will allow for the creation of Digital Objects to be associated with already-created Archival Objects for Version 2.2.2 and higher of ArchiveSpace.

Current Version

For versions of ArchivesSpace before v2.2.2: v1.7.8

NOTE: v1.7.8 does not support the creation of Digital Objects to be associated with already-created Archival Objects.

For ArchivesSpace v2.2.2 and higher: v3.0.2

Development

This plugin supports interactive selection of an archival object (or resource) as the starting point of the bulk upload.

Version 3.0 incorporates new functionality for uploading archival objects (described in the user documentation), which supports the use of an expansion to the original Excel template. Version 3.0 is, however, backward compatible, so that users whose workflow is satisfied with the original template can continue to use it.

Bulk upload/creation of Archival Objects

The Excel templates will be found in the templates/ folder as

• New in V3.0: extended_aspace_import_excel_template

• aspace_import_excel_template.xlsx.

The intention is not to completely reproduce a Finding Aid as presented in an EAD XML, or to allow for every permutation of Archival Object creation within ArchivesSpace. We are aiming for the "80% rule"; that is, at least 80% of the work that would be done interactively can be replaced by an excel spreadsheet; additional refinements to individual archival objects (such as assignment of locations to top-level containers) would take place interactively.

See the user documentation for more information.

Bulk upload/creation of Digital Objects associated with already-created Archival Objects

This functionality is turned on by default See the Installation instructions for turning it off.

The Excel template will be found in the templates/ folder as aspace_import_excel_DO_template.xlsx.

As with the original development, we are not completely reproducing all the functionality of ArchivesSpace: only one Digital Object, which can have either or both of one:

• File with an Xlink Actuate Attribute of onLoad and an Xlink Show Attribute of embed
• File with an Xlink Actuate Attribute of onRequest and an Xlink Show Attribute of new

See the user documentation for more information.

Installation

This is a regular ArchivesSpace Plug-in.

To install this plug-in:

1. Either clone this plugin, or download the latest version:

   • Clone the plug-in from this GitHub repository into the ArchivesSpace /plugins/ directory.
   • Download the zipfile of the appropriate version: see Current Versions for links to the appropriate release download. Unzip the download into the /plugins/ directory. You will probably need to rename the top folder/directory to aspace-import-excel.

2. (Optional) To turn off the functionality for creating Digital Objects associated with already-created Archival objects, you must edit /plugin/aspace-import-excel/frontend/plugin_init.rb. Change the line

    AppConfig[:hide_do_load] = false

to

    AppConfig[:hide_do_load] = true

3. IF you are running, on Windows, a version of ArchivesSpace that is lower than version 2.6.0:

   There was a problem with Bundler versioning.

Copy

archivesspace\aspace-import-excel\extras\modified_initialize-plugin.bat

to

archivesspace\scripts

UPDATE: You no longer need to use this modified .bat script if you are running ArchivesSpace 2.6.0 or higher.

4. Run the initializer script:

   • for Linux, that's

   scripts/initialize-plugin.sh aspace-import-excel

   • for Windows, running an ArchivesSpace version lower than 2.6.0 ,that's

   scripts\modified_initialize-plugin.bat aspace-import-excel
   

   Otherwise, for Windows running ArchivesSpace version 2.6.0 and higher:

   scripts\initialize-plugin.bat aspace-import-excel
   

5. In the common/config/config.rb file, add 'aspace-import-excel' to the AppConfig[:plugins] array.

6. Stop and restart ArchivesSpace

Why we don't include a Gemfile.lock in this repository

We have found that when we include a Gemfile.lock file in our plugin, some sites have found that, after initializing the plugin and trying to restart ArchivesSpace, they get errors like this:

[!] There was an error parsing Gemfile: You cannot specify the same gem twice with different version requirements.
You specified: rubyzip (~> 1.2.2) and rubyzip (= 1.0.0). Bundler cannot continue.

This problem does not seem to occur when the Gemfile.lock is created through the initialization instead.

User Documentation

User documentation is available

Contributors

• Bobbi Fox: @bobbi-SMR (maintainer)
• Robin Wendler: @rwendler
• Julie Wetherill: @juliewetherill
• Adrienne Pruitt: @adriennepruitt2
• Dave Mayo: @pobocks
• h/t to Chintan Desai: @cdesai-qi for catching inconsistencies