July 7, 2014

Date/Time: July 7, 2014 @ 4pm EDT

Dial-in Info: Phone number and access code

Moderator: Nathan Tallman

Notetaker: Matthew Farrell

Attendees:

  • Mark Custer (Yale)
  • Steven Villereal (Virginia)
  • Matthew Farrell (Duke)
  • Adam Wead (Penn State)
  • Nathan Tallman (Cincinnati)
  • Eira Tansey (Cincinnati)
  • Mike Giarlo (Penn State)

Agenda & Notes

  1. Call for agenda items
    1. nothing else added
  2. Discuss Mike Giarlo's five minimum functions from summation of use cases:  Hydra ArchivesSpace Integration Features
    1. The proposed functions desired
      1. Bidirectional linking between ArchivesSpace and Hydra to associate an object in one system with an object in the other. These links may need some semantic disambiguation beyond "associated with," and so a list of relevant relationships (from one or more ontologies) between archival and digital objects would come in handy.
      2. Persistent, unique identifiers to make associations "stick."
      3. For an identified thing in ArchivesSpace or Hydra, the ability to grab its (descriptive, technical, provenance, event, finding aid) metadata.
      4. Query based on an identifier or set of identifiers.
      5. Apply filters to queries.
    2. Discussion
      1. Appears to Mike and the group that we have a good sense of what integration would mean. Not everything ironed out, but enough to get started
      2. Who else is ready to start working on it?
        1. Penn State directing all work on ScholarSphere until September. Could take up Aspace integration at that point, but it may be a 2015 development project
        2. Duke is interested in pursuing this sooner rather than later (adopting Aspace in August), but will require special collections lobbying repository developers for development resources. Probably not a full time commitment
        3. Beinecke's major work is a project whose documentation is private for the time being, but will be shared when approved. Still in the discussion phase of Aspace integration
        4. UVa is starting to think of integration, at least in single-direction between Avalon and Aspace
        5. University of Cincinnati is investigating ASpace adoption. If adopted, resource allocation may allow for development cycles toward integration
        6. Mike to hit other HAWG institutions as to their timelines
      3. Mike will also pull the user stories documents and summaries together, as well as a description of what delivery might be (gem that would fit into Hydra and be equipped to read and write from ASpace), and post to the wiki and list that we've performed due diligence re: integration and ready to discuss other Hydra/Archives topics
  3. Querying the ASpace backend via the API
    1. Duke described initial forays into querying the Aspace API and wondered if other institutions had begun similar endeavors
    2. Beinecke has not yet, but will probably soon
    3. PSU has moved Aspace into production but is not yet pinging the API
    4. Mike confirms that the API is fairly nascent. Among the four initiatives of ASpace's Technical Advisory Group, one is aimed at making the API as robust as possible, but the priority level of API development is unclear. The developers are probably looking for feedback on it and its documentation before making tweaks.
  4. Action Items
    1. Mike to put summaries/user stories and description of potential deliverable somewhere on wiki
    2. Mike to ping HAWG institutions about Aspace integration timelines (if known)
    3. Adam to put out a message to Hydra list next week soliciting next HAWG Topics (one example is BitCurator, but others are welcome).
  5. Next Meeting
    1. August 4. 4 pm EDT/1 pm PDT
    2. Moderator: Nathan
    3. Notetaker: Matthew