Collections and Admin Sets: Collection Nesting FAQ

What is collection nesting?

Collections that have collections as members.

Can a collection have collections and works as members?

Yes. A collection can have all sub-collections, all works, or a combination of both.

How do I setup a collection type that can be nested?

• Dashboard -> Settings -> Collection Types

• click Create new collection type, set title and description, save (or edit a type that doesn’t yet have any collections created)

• click Settings tab (visible after saving a new collection)

• check the box beside NESTABLE

• save changes

Is there a limit to how deep the nesting can go?

The depth of nesting is limited. By default the limit is set to 5. It is defined in the hyrax engine in config/initializers/samvera-nesting_indexer_initializer.rb by config config.maximum_nesting_depth = 5. You can override this to set a different maximum_nesting_depth.

Can a collection be its own descendant?

No. An ancestor validation is performed when a collection is added to another collection to prevent circular chains.

Can collections of different types be nested?

No. At this time, nesting is limited to collections of the same type. For example, you can nest a User Collection in a User Collection AND you can nest an Organizational Collection in an Organization Collection, but you can NOT nest a User Collection in an Organizational Collection.

In the future, this could be relaxed to allow a configuration that identifies which collection types can be nested in which, if this is determined to be a priority.

Where do I manage collection nesting relationships?

There are two places in the UI for managing nesting.

• Collection show page at Dashboard -> Collections -> click title of collection

• Collection edit form at Dashboard -> Collections -> click action menu beside collection -> Edit collection -> Relationship tab

How can I see what collections are nested?

Right now, there are two place to see nesting relationships and in both places, they only shows the immediate parents and subcollections.

• Collection show page at Dashboard -> Collections -> click title of collection

• Collection edit form at Dashboard -> Collections -> click action menu beside collection -> Edit collection -> Relationship tab

We hope to update the Dashboard -> Collections index page in later releases to include the ability to view nesting hierarchies, but there is extensive UI/UX design work required before implementation can happen.

Can admin sets be nested?

No. The Admin Set collection type come preconfigured with nesting turned off.