The UK National Archives' goal is to re-imagine archival practice, pioneer new approaches to description and build a new linked data catalogue. The Pan-Archival Catalogue will bring together into one management system descriptions of both physical and digital records from a variety of sources within the organization. This report briefly describes the users' feedback on aspects of the new data model when first shown in the new editorial interface and as part of business processes.
Archives are changing. New ways of preserving, describing and presenting
records are emerging and archivists are rising to the challenge. At last year’s
conference, our colleagues presented a paper on the development of The National
Archives’ Pan-Archival linked data catalogue and our need to replace the
ageing system with a new catalogue to manage the metadata for all types of records.
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We have started our exploration of how the model fits with the needs of users and their processes. In this brief report, we reflect on the initial user responses to the implementation of the new model in the first iterations of the editorial user interface and related editorial and accessioning workflows. This highlighted a number of assumptions we had made about the application of linked data in general, and our data model in particular, to the machinery of the editorial process within the creation and management of The National Archives’ catalogue.
The first phase of the project produced a draft of our conceptual data model. A
living document, it described our approach to ‘replacing legacy systems,
reducing duplication and creating new opportunities through unlocking the
unrealised potential in The National Archives’ data’ [
In parallel, we carried out some initial user research on the existing editorial
interface to give us an understanding of the current processes, issues and new
requirements using an early prototype based on the existing physical records
model. As the new model is a marked departure, and because the catalogue is a
business critical system, a more rigorous approach to our user research was
needed. A team of user experience (UX) researchers and service designers
carried out formal user research to ensure that, as well as adhering to accessibility
and editorial standards, we were following UK Government Digital Service
Standard [
The principle of provenance forms the basis of most institutional archival
description. Within the profession however, there has been a growing
acknowledgement of the multiplicity of perspectives on archival records beyond the
institutional. The RiC-Conceptual Model (RiC-CM) incorporates this wider
perspective, encompassing the single hierarchy resulting from the Respect des
fonds approach but taking it further. It defines a record set as both ‘one or more
records that are grouped together by an agent based on the records sharing one
or more attributes or relations’ and ‘some other selection and grouping that
fulfils a particular purpose or purposes (for example, a classification that reflects
or supports the purposes of a researcher)’ [
From a staff user’s perspective, how should we present our records arranged in different ways by the people who used them? How would we show the contexts of the different arrangements? Due to the urgency of replacing our ageing system, finding the answers to these questions can be deferred for the moment.
The division of a record into four entities (see Section 2) is a fundamental shift from our current ISAD(G)-based data model1. Each entity has its own properties, some of which exist at multiple levels, for example, both the Description and the Realisation have Scope and Content but each contain different information. Other properties are unique to a specific level, for example, only Realisations have Physical Extent and Form.
When we considered how to present these different entities and their properties in the new user interface, it became clear that the data could not be split easily into these entities and properties using automation. To explore this, we mapped an existing catalogue description to the new model.2 The current Scope and Content describes the record as ‘Middlesex: Westminster (now in London Borough of Westminster). Plan of Buckingham House and grounds abutting on Green Park and St James's Park. Shows garden layout, with trees in elevation. Reference table to plots marked EFGHI and KLM on plan. Scale: 1 inch to 60 feet. Compass indicator. [By] Charles Evans. This plan, annotated 'No 150' at the top of the sheet, is similar to MPE 1/378, but refers to different portions of the site. A copy of this plan, made in May 1760, is MFQ 1/450’ 1 See https://www.ica.org/en/isadg-general-international-standard-archival-description-secondedition 2 See the catalogue entry on Discovery: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4048574
Westminster (now in London Bor- plan, made in May 1760 is MFQ ough of Westminster). Plan of Buck- 1/450. ingham House and grounds abutting Map Scale: 1:720 on Green Park and St James's Park. Related Material: This plan is similar Shows garden layout, with trees in to MPE 1/378, but refers to different elevation. Reference table to plots portions of the site. marked EFGHI and KLM on plan. Places: Westminster, Green Park Scale: 1 inch to 60 feet. Compass in- and St James's Park dicator. Creator: Charles Evans
Staff acknowledged that our mapping, augmentation and arrangement of the description (see Table 1) were valid but were concerned about how this would be achieved without extensive re-cataloguing. Some of this metadata is not captured in this structure by the existing accessioning process so it would necessitate changes not just internally at The National Archives but also government departments who are responsible for describing the records they transfer to us. Clearly, this approach will need further consultation.
Our existing data model is based on the accepted archival principle that
‘archival description proceeds from the general to the specific’ i.e. data is
normalized so that it is held at the highest point possible in the hierarchy [
Some properties can safely be moved down to the record level: if there is only one organisation in Immediate Source of Acquisition and the series is no longer accruing, this value could be denormalised. Archivists are reluctant to make inaccurate statements and even when it seems simple to denormalize the data, it is not always sound to do so. For example, where the creator information is currently held at series rather than at file or item level. If a series only has one creator then the logical assumption would be that the information could be propagated down to any records within that series. Conceptually however, in recognizing that the catalogue data is both a work in progress and exists in an open world, the assignment of the creator at series level only indicates that at least some of the records in that series came from that creator rather than being a statement about all of them. From a functional perspective, this nuance may not be obvious to a researcher using the public catalogue, so denormalizing substantiates an assumed, but unknown, association.
Where there are multiple creators listed at series level (see Fig. 1) denormalization is more risky as dates, the most obvious means of disambiguation, are not granular enough to separate many of the edge-cases, and, as the individual records themselves may have more than one creator, there cannot be a clear and automatically applied delimitation. While these edge cases are only a small percentage of the total, the number is still significant enough to require manual checking, and this cannot be achieved during the initial data migration exercise given the project’s deadline. If we cannot denormalize the existing data, either as a whole or in part, could we look to the future data to improve the accuracy of the catalogue? Could the data better reflect reality at the level at which the information is held? One example could be holding the creator of a record at the level of that record. The ideal is to represent the truth but, as with the additional requirements around the capture of more structured metadata described in Section 4, we are not receiving creator data for individual records now, so these changes would need to be discussed with both internal staff and those in government departments responsible for describing and transferring the records. From a user-centric perspective, the aim of the new system is to streamline the editorial process and reduce the workload by removing inefficiencies in the interface rather than generate additional work. Some information could be captured automatically but, returning to the example of creator, the transferring department and the creating department are not necessarily the same and the transferring department may not know the creating department if the records are older, and/or inherited from elsewhere in government. This leaves us in a position where conceptually it would be valuable to denormalize the data, and the data model supports us doing so, but it may not be feasible in reality.
Our work with the UX team challenged some key assumptions that we had made in the early stages of the project. While we had shared our data model publicly and sent it for review by members of our core user group who were familiar with conceptual models, it was not until we began incorporating parts of the model in the wireframes for the initial interface that the impact for the archivists and their working practices became clear.
The work on the new catalogue system looks both inwards, to improving the interface for the editorial team, and outwards to the data contributed by other teams to the system or those supplied with data sent from the system. Moving to a linked data catalogue offers many advantages when searching, processing and exploring the data but for the staff managing the data, the benefits are less clear. While the staff are enthusiastic and engaged, change is never an easy proposition and a key component of successful change management is showing the direct benefits to the people affected by the change. We have more questions than answers, but we have a better idea of what the questions are. It is the users rather than the technology that should drive the change, especially where it has implications for the editorial process. As we reach the stage of the project where technology and users meet, and under the pressure of delivery deadlines, we are seeing more points of negotiation and re-evaluation emerge. We will continue to learn as we start to build the user interface iteratively: testing our assumptions about how staff will work with the new model to ensure it meets their needs and allows us to make the best use of the model’s potential. 7. References