Poster

Square Pegs and Round Holes: Examining an Unconventional Approach to using ArchivesSpace

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Abstract

In 2023, the Special Collections and Archives Department at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, began the process of adopting and adapting ArchivesSpace for presenting finding aids online. In response to university plans to discontinue support for the department’s current finding aids platform, the department was given 12 months to identify, configure, and implement a new tool to host finding aids online. After exploring many options, the department selected to adopt ArchivesSpace as non-members.

This poster explores the on-going project to manually render approximately 400 finding aids in ArchivesSpace within 9 months, guided by a team of three archivists and the support of an IT professional. While maintaining a focus on the needs of end users, we examine the rewards and challenges of a project impacted by significant time and resource constraints. The project involves creative adaptation of ArchivesSpace’s fields and features to efficiently render finding aids through a manual entry process. The poster offers an honest reflection on the perceived challenges of this approach and potential consequences for future development of the institution’s instance of ArchivesSpace. Importantly, we highlight how the inherent flexibility in ArchivesSpace can be utilized in an unconventional manner.

This essential in-progress case study examines a practical and innovative problem-solving approach employed by the Special Collections and Archives Department team. The audience for this poster is any archivist examining or adopting new tools, such as ArchivesSpace, and interested in how these processes can support innovative team-building and problem-solving initiatives.

Keywords: ArchivesSpace

How to Cite:

Hatfield, J. & Kocken, G., (2024) “Square Pegs and Round Holes: Examining an Unconventional Approach to using ArchivesSpace”, MAC Annual Meeting Presentations 2024(1).