Initial estimating for BAM-PFA Art migration

Owned by Chris Hoffman
Mar 25, 2014

Note: These are preliminary estimates and are subject to modification.

 

Customizations for CollectionSpace

 

  • Cataloging

    • In their system some fields are read-only display summaries from other tabs (e.g., measurement, current location, current sub location, acquisition info, credit line) and even from the artists table (Origin/Place, DOB and DOD). Users like to be able to see a summary without going to other tabs. We might need to repeat what we did with “current location” e.g., saving some fields from Acquisition onto Collection Objects.  Alternatively we could just show them how easy it is to get that information by clicking on related tab, though that is what they can do now.

      • Estimate: If the summary fields are read-only, 1 day for each record type from which to extract fields. If they are read-write, +2 days to design a general strategy, +1 day to implement for each record type.

    • Accession number: Made up of six subfields or parts. Need to calculate objectNumber from those parts.

      • Estimate: 1 day

    • Need a few fields, e.g., Date In and Number of Scans.

      • Estimate: 2 hours

    • Collection: Will need to be repeating (like PAHMA)

      • Estimate: 1 hour

    • Part Of: Used differently by different users to identify a broader context, not necessarily a separate record in system currently.  Might need to add a field for this, but it will certainly be a topic of design discussion.

      • Estimate: 1 hour, if it’s just adding a new field.

    • Measurements: Fields for English and Metric units (height, width, depth).  Legacy fields and newer repeating group so some data migration issues will exist.  Some fields here are then summarized automatically on Detail subtab. Might need a function to calculate a summary from the detailed information, or make them type the display summary.

      • Estimate: 4-8 hours, depending on the complexity of the calculation

    • Copyright: Add four basic fields (copyright credit, copyright holder, copyright notes, permission checkbox)

      • Estimate: 2 hours

    • Period/Style: Might be an existing field we can use or add repeating field controlled by dynamic list.

      • Estimate: 1 hour

    • CASC project is trying to use more of an archival model with extensive use of hierarchical relationships among collection objects.  CSpace should be fine, but it will be an ongoing source of conversation about system design and usage.

      • Estimate: ? Need more design work to determine what (if any) changes are required.

  • Acquisition: Might need to add 4-6 fields

    • Estimate: 2 hours

  • Location: BAM has a simple repeating group: Located (checkbox), Main Loc, Sub Loc, Purpose, Comments, and Date/By.  Should fit into current CSpace (probably PAHMA model), but need to think about upcoming move and Sub Loc in particular. Sub Location would need to be added (free text).

    • Estimate: 1 hour, if it’s just adding the Sub Loc field

  • Adapt PAHMA web apps for move support.  They will be doing a pre-move inventory and then staging moves to Regatta locations.  Some objects will stay in Regatta.

    • Estimate: This is a question for John. Probably need more information about the necessary changes.

  • Media handling workflows: Currently, images are processed via software and moved into folders on hard drives.  Orlando has scripts that watch those folders and then process them to move them into new locations and create FileMaker records that can be related to collection items.  We can a) have them change workflow to use CSpace Media Handling as is, b) have them change workflow to use new Bulk Media Upload utility (would need to be adjusted for them) or c) develop a workflow where their watched folder images get copied to a CSpace server where they are harvested via cron (create MH records, blobs, and relationships to Collection Objects)

    • Estimate: Also a question for John, but it sounds like we could write a script to watch a folder, and invoke the BMU webapp when it finds new images. Probably 2-3 days of work.

  • Condition Checking: Adopt procedure from Walker/CSpace or add a few fields (BAM currently has three non-repeating fields for Condition Notes, Conservation History, and Condition Date).

    • Estimate: Adding fields would be a couple hours. Adopting the procedure would be 2-3 days.

  • Text Labels (for exhibitions).  Add text label field to Exhibition Tracking or build new procedure Text Labels.  (The FMPro system has the ability for the user to format text in the labels.  Currently however that is not being done.) Some options here: Run a report or export.  Embed HTML editor. Use fields for title and text and do formatting based on fields.  Where does the label text go next before printing?  What format is required (HTML or XML is easiest)?

    • Estimate: Assuming it’s acceptable to use HTML markup to store the formatting, 5 days to integrate an HTML editor into the UI. +1-2 days to implement cspace workflow: it sounds like we need to pull title and text fields into an HTML label field, and then allow that to be edited. It would be hard to keep the formatted label in sync with the title and text fields if they change. Plus more time to export the label or write a report. We need more design on that part.

  • Extracts and reports: A modest set of reports and data extracts would be needed. A few canned reports, plus help from Orlando on extracts and reports.  Counts --- maybe via a web app.

  • Integration with BAM/PFA Drupal web site: Build a feed to make metadata available for Drupal web site. Need to look into how images will be made available to Drupal.  How much data will get harvested? What are timing and scheduling requirements?  We would probably be doing the same thing with CineFiles though we haven’t fully defined the mechanism.

    • Estimate: This needs more design work, and is probably a question for Glen, based on the cinefiles feed. Maybe around 2-3 weeks.

  • Adopt Exhibition authority and Presentations procedure from Walker/CSpace or add a few fields.  Note that BAM currently does not have a tab for exhibition history, but they do have Text Labels for exhibition materials.

    • Estimate: A few hours just to add fields, a few days to integrate Exhibitions and Presentations

  • NLG: Right now, we have a script Orlando wrote that exports a few fields from filemaker so we can embed them in the related image using Adobe bridge - this way the key metadata travels with the image no matter what.

  • Simplify reporting on search results (optional). Might need to build ability to run reports from search results (might not be too bad).  Might need to build checkbox capability to filter search results (probably really hard especially if pagination comes into play).

    • Estimate: On second thought, the first option is probably a lot of work. Easiest is to add checkboxes and allow running reports on a single page of search results, about 5 days. + a few days to make it work for all pages of search results, but there’s no way to do this efficiently for large search results. Probably 2 weeks to do the first option: extend the services layer to accept a search query, and run a report on the results of that query.

 

Data and Media Migration 

 

Size: Fewer than 20K Collection Objects.  3500 Images. FMPro file is 75MB.

 

Authorities:

  • Artists/persons: There are some legacy data issues here.  They’ve talked about trying to do some cleanup before switching to another system, but likely some cleanup during migration would be required.

  • Some fields like Acquisition Source, Copyright Holder, Text Author are currently free text.  Convert to org/person authorities or make the field in CSpace be free text?

  • Locations: Location is controlled text but Sub Loc is not.

  • Places: I think they are just using free text in Origin/Place field

  • Subjects/Themes: Currently a drop down but could be converted to authority

  • Style/Period: Currently a drop down but could be converted to authority

 

Controlled lists:

  • Collection

  • ...

 

Collection Objects:

  • Probably need to reconcile some issues with artists (legacy data fields and new repeating set).

  • Probably need to reconcile some issues with measurements (legacy and new fields) and plenty of parsing, especially if calculating a summary field.

  • Probably some issues parsing dates into structured dates.

 

Procedures:

  • Acquisition

  • Location: Probably need to reconcile some issues with legacy location data.

  • Media Handling

  • Condition Tracking (if adopting new procedure)

  • Text Labels: Migrate into Exhibitions procedure and Presentations authority OR new Text Labels procedure (maybe Use of Collections?)