Archive Management System update

This is a regular monthly update about the Archive Management System project.  There are many significant milestones for the AMS project coming this year and we are looking forward to a productive and successful year.

Discovery layer

In our November update we reported that we had conducted in-depth scoring exercises on two potential discovery systems. The AMS Project Board have decided that ArchivesSpace will be used as the discovery layer for the AMS. There are 5 organisations which have indicated that they wish to participate in discovery (but not in the AMS). iDiscover will be used to bring together data from the systems used by the 5 discovery participants with all other data in the AMS. A presence on iDiscover would give much greater visibility to Cambridge’s archives collections and would also allow researchers to search archive collections separately or together with other library materials.

User experience interviews have been taking place: these are a valuable opportunity to find out about how researchers use online archive systems and what features they see as the most important. We will use this feedback to shape the AMS public user interface.

We will investigate sharing data from the AMS with other data aggregators, such as the ArchivesHub and TNA’s Discovery.

Infrastructure

We are working hard on preparations to roll out the AMS more widely across the Library and external partners.

Migration

Work testing, checking and refining migration is ongoing.

Best wishes,

Natalie Adams and Katrina Dean