Curating the Batch Roll-up

Selecting access points

Selection chooses access points for sends, and it is opt-in. Nothing is ticked by default, and access-point sends deliver exactly what the saved curation shows. Ticking never removes anything. Item records and file exports carry every mention regardless. Checkboxes and per-section Select all and Deselect all appear when your workspace holds an ArchivesSpace connection, yours or a teammate's. Without one, the roll-up offers the verbs that shape your exports, merges, labels, roles, local establishment, and removal, and file exports remain a complete delivery on their own. Subject headings come first, then agents and entities grouped by reconciliation status, Reconciled, Established locally, Other types, and Unreconciled, with broader geography and held-back names collapsed by default. Established locally holds the rows your institution stands behind under its own identifier, or a record in your repository where one is connected, that no file in your active set holds yet. When the list grows long, a filter bar above the agents narrows it by name, by type, or to the rows that still need a decision. Select all then acts on the rows shown.

Save curation persists everything on the surface at once, and every save keeps an undo history you can restore from.

Merging duplicates

When the same identity appears under two spellings, "Casals, Pablo" and "Pau Casals", merge the variant into the canonical row. The merge picker ranks likely targets by name overlap, with authority-linked rows boosted. Merges are reversible (unmerge from the chip under the target row), and the relationship graph re-routes its edges to the canonical row immediately. When two rows carry one title in two spellings, as with FELICES DIAS and Felices días from a batch processed before Acervo folded accents, the poorer row offers a merge into the richer one, the one with a global match, a repository record, a local id, a credit, or more documents. Merge into accepts it, Not the same sets it aside for this visit, and nothing merges on its own.

Merged spellings aren't discarded. When an agent is created in your repository, they ride along as variant name forms, so the record knows every way the archive wrote the name.

Subject headings offer merge and label editing only while they are unreconciled. Once a heading carries a FAST or LCSH link, the vocabulary supplies the label and identical headings converge on their own, so those rows offer selection and chip removal instead. An unreconciled heading can still be merged into a linked one to adopt the authorized form. Any heading that is wrong for the material, linked or not, can be removed from every record at once; the confirm names the document count, exports and sends stop carrying it, and for a few moments after, an Undo on the toast puts it back.

Labels, roles, and authorized forms

Edit a row's label to the form your catalog should carry, or fetch the authorized form (Library of Congress first, Wikidata fallback) with one click. A row linked to a repository record is named by that record's authorized form without a rename, and a rename still outranks it. The name comes from your rename, else the linked repository record, else the documents. Label edits are curation, not data edits. The documents keep their own spellings, and the form they printed becomes a variant. The row keeps the original in view. After a rename it reads was, followed by the derived name, and when Acervo normalized a printed form it reads printed as, followed by what the page says.

Roles, creator versus subject, are suggested from document evidence (who wrote, who is written about) and can be overridden per row. A partial creator share gets an amber hint asking you to confirm the role. When the role truly differs by document, open the row's document list and set creator or subject per document. The distinction is stored on the document itself, beside the role the pipeline extracted, and flows back into the roll-up, item sends, and exports on the next derive.

Repository reconciliation

With ArchivesSpace connected, the roll-up checks whether each agent, and each work, already exists in your repository, agents against its agent records and works against its uniform-title subjects

• Linked · authority identifiers match, or the row's local id is one an earlier send wrote onto the agent. The row takes the repository's authorized form as its name, marked repository form, sends reuse the record, and Save curation keeps the link. A row whose identifiers match in a file in your set stays with the reconciled rows. A row linked by its local id sits in Established locally when the record carries no global identifier, since a repository record is an establishment too, and in Reconciled once the record's global identifiers reach the documents. Nothing is ticked for you
• Suggested · name forms match, exactly or as a nearby form, including variants and your own earlier confirmations; you confirm or dismiss. Once linked, the row takes the repository's authorized form as its name, the printed spelling is kept as a variant, and the row leaves the unreconciled group, for Reconciled when the record carries global identifiers, else for Established locally
• Conflict · the same name carries different identifiers on each side; amber-flagged for your judgment, never auto-picked

Relationship rows get the same awareness. When both endpoints match repository agents that are already related, the row says so, so you don't re-send what the repository already knows.

A linked record's own identifiers supersede the batch's. On the link, the record's set becomes the row's set for the global files. Its identifiers are written into this batch's documents, and any the record lacks are removed, since the record is your institution's judgment, absence included. A record with no global identifier changes nothing. A link made earlier catches up on your next visit to the review, with one receipt, unless the curation is marked complete. Until a write lands, the record's identifiers show as chips with a dashed outline. Unlinking leaves the identifiers in the documents. If the link was wrong, remove them from the row's chips.

With or without a connection, a match the checker misses is yours to make. Same identity as, on any unreconciled person, organization, or work row, searches what the workspace already knows the name as. Locally established identities are always searched. The repository's own records and identities confirmed in earlier batches join the search when your workspace holds a connection. A work meets the repository's uniform titles, the subjects a send creates for works, never its agents. Choose a repository record and the row links to it and takes its form and its identifiers. Choose a local identity and the row reuses its id, so both batches point to the same person or work. The checker also offers nearby forms on its own, where only particles, articles, or initials differ, as with de Quiñones, Rosa M. against Quiñones, Rosa. A nearby form is always a suggestion for you to confirm, never a link made for you.

Establishing an identity locally

Some people and organizations are real, matter to your collection, and appear in no global authority file. When an unreconciled agent row is one of these, Establish locally records your judgment. The row gains a workspace-minted local id and a Local chip, and it moves to Established locally, because established is not unverified and not reconciled either. The chip carries no link, and hovering it shows the id. The record is your institution's own, grounded in the documentary evidence on the row. When your workspace declares a local identifier scheme, under Settings, then Vocabularies, or on the institution profile until one is set there, Establish asks for the identifier, offers the next number under the scheme, counting any imported ids that fit it, and refuses one already in use. A person or organization row already linked to a repository record can be established too. The local id and the record sit side by side, and the next send adds the id to the record's identifiers, so later batches link it by id.

The local id travels. When a send creates the agent in your repository it rides along as a record identifier, and it appears in the identity export in its own column, so the identity outlives the batch's documents. Establishment is judged per batch, and the judgment stays yours. When the name matches, or nearly matches, an identity your workspace established in an earlier batch, the establish dialog shows it, marking a nearby form, so you can reuse the same id or mint a new one. When the match is exact, reusing the id comes first, since establishing the name again creates a second identity that the two batches never fold. Removing the local record is one click on the row or on the Local chip. The row returns to where it stood before, the unreconciled group, the held-back list, or beside its repository record.

Works can be established the same way. A romanza or a danza that no global file holds gains a local id that clusters every program listing it and appears in the identity export. A part is established through its parent work, which carries the id. When the parent is not in the batch, or was removed, the part is established on its own. Works are never sent as agents.

Works and their parts

Works nest. An aria sits under its opera, a romanza under its zarzuela, an arrangement under its original. When the program prints the relation, Acervo reads it and the part appears beneath its parent with a Part of or Arrangement of badge. When the page does not print it, Place under records your judgment. Choose the parent from the batch's other work rows, choose Part of for an excerpt or Arrangement of for a transcription, and the badge reads placed. Remove the placement returns the work to standing on its own. A placement outranks the printed relation for that work, and both are saved with the curation. The parent must be a work row in the batch, and removing the parent releases its children.

Edit the credit pairs a work with a person or organization row from the batch and names the role, composer, arranger, lyricist, or another role you write yourself. When Acervo reads a printed line such as an arrangement credit as the composer, the credit edit corrects it. Composers credited elsewhere in the batch rank first. No credit sets the printed credit aside, for a traditional song or a misread line, and the work then carries no composer. The credit is your judgment, saved with the curation, and it outranks the printed credit, which stays visible as printed. A named badge marks the work, a cleared badge marks a work with no credit, and Remove the credit edit returns it to the printed credit, or to none. The credit never sends. It shapes the Relationships section, the credit and its role among the relationships in the identity export, and the record kept after day 90.

Not a part sets a printed relation aside. When the page printed a work under another and the reading is wrong, the verb records your judgment. The work stands on its own in the review, the Relationships section, the identity export, and the record kept after day 90. The badge reads not a part, and Restore the printed relation brings the page's reading back. Acervo also never reads a section heading made only of genre and grouping words, such as Canciones de arte, Baile tradicional, or Oratorio, as a parent work. Such a heading groups the numbers beneath it. The numbers stand as works of their own, and the heading is not one. In a batch processed before this rule, a heading Acervo already read as a work stays as a row until you remove it.

Nesting shapes the review, the Relationships section, the identity export, and the record kept after day 90. It never creates a record in your repository. Works are never sent as agents. A parent named only as the source of an excerpt carries the role Programmed (excerpt), so a full opera and a single aria from it never collapse into one fact. A part the page printed, or that you placed, is established through its parent, which carries the local id.

Held-back names

A single program, masthead, or donor page can add fifty names that appear once, carry no authority, and were read from a list. Acervo holds these back by default. On letterhead, the officers printed in the margin, a president, a treasurer, a conductor, and the past holders of those offices, surface on their own with the office named. A board of governors, a members list, or honorary names are held back. A married form such as Mrs. John R. Upton is never searched, since the match would be the husband. A held-back name's authority match arrives as a suggestion on the row, Library of Congress suggests or Wikidata suggests, for you to adopt, and the name stays held back until you bring it forward. They stay in the record, in the item table, in the CSV, Dublin Core, and MODS exports, and in the identity export, where a held_back column marks them. EAD finding aids keep the record but do not list them as controlled access terms, and they never become access points or agent records in your repository. Holding back is not removal. A held-back name is one search away in its own collapsed section of the review, and a name that recurs in a second document, or that carries an authority, surfaces on its own.

Bring forward is the fishing rod. Bringing a name forward makes it a candidate access point you can select. When your workspace holds a connection, Bring all forward first tells you what that adds, how many rows you will review, how many new agent records a send could create, and how many already exist in your repository, before it happens. Hold back reverses it. Both are saved with the curation, and nothing is selected for you either way.

Confirmed identities across batches

Confirming "same identity" is remembered across your whole workspace, per repository. The next batch that mentions that person resolves them automatically, no re-asking, names the row with the repository's authorized form, and your confirmed spellings are written onto the repository agent as variant name forms, so its own search learns them too, and the record's own identifiers become the row's, as under Repository reconciliation.

Confirmations can be retracted at any time; retraction applies workspace-wide and takes effect on future sends. Variant name forms already written to the agent remain.

A match made in another batch is offered as well. When an unreconciled person, organization, or work row carries the same name as an identity another batch in your workspace holds, or a nearby form, matched to a global file by Acervo or by you, or linked to a repository record, the row says so and asks whether it is the same identity, with or without a connection. Same identity, add the IDs writes those identifiers into this batch's documents, the honest place for a documentary fact, and links the repository record when the earlier batch had one. Same identity, link it makes the link, and the record's own identifiers follow it, as under Repository reconciliation. A local identity another batch established is offered the same way, read from that batch's saved curation, and Same identity, reuse the id gives this row that identifier, a part through its parent. Not the same sets the offer aside for this visit. An identity in the list you imported under Settings, then Vocabularies, is offered the same way, exactly or as a nearby form, and adopting it gives the row that identifier. Recall of a match reads the record kept after day 90, which a saved curation or a send writes, so a batch neither saved nor sent has nothing to offer, and an offer is only as good as the earlier batch's review.

Marking curation complete

When a batch's description is finished, Mark curation complete, beside Save curation, declares it so. It appears once the curation is saved and nothing is pending. Acervo records who and when. From then on the roll-up verbs step aside, the checkboxes rest, and edits to each document's description are refused, until someone chooses Unlock to edit. Unlocking is one click. It clears the stamp, and the next Mark curation complete records a new name and date, so the lock is a speed bump with a name on it, never a permission wall. Delivery is not editing. A complete batch still exports and still sends.

Completion is a claim about the description, not about reconciliation. A wrong match found next month is fixed by unlocking, correcting, and marking complete again.

Relationships

The Relationships section gathers connections between agents, and between agents and the works and events they touch. It also gathers connections between works themselves, an excerpt to its parent and an arrangement to its original, read from the printed page or from your placement. Those rows stay visible with their receipts and never send. Asserted in the documents themselves, asserted by you through Edit the credit, or derived deterministically from roles. Correspondence pairs from letters, interview pairs, agreement parties, letterhead affiliations. Asserted relationships between agents are ready to send unless you exclude them; a relationship to a work stays visible and never sends; derived relationships send only when you confirm them; everything else stays visible but never sends. Without a workspace connection the section shows one flat list, relationships stay visible with their evidence, and inclusion appears once the workspace holds a connection.

When your team has the canon turned on, every relationship row offers inclusion with or without a connection, with Select all and Deselect all for the section, and the relationships you include join the canon when you save the curation. Including a relationship there never sends it anywhere.

Every edge carries its evidence quote and its document receipts. No numeric scores are invented for relationships. The evidence is the argument.

Where to go next

• §7 Delivering & the ArchivesSpace Integration · What happens to your curation at delivery time
• §5 Reviewing in the Workbench · Item-level review and editing, and the item-versus-batch boundary