[Yale ArchivesSpace] Important ArchivesSpace Updates

[Wisner, Melissa]

Hello Everyone,

As I mentioned quickly yesterday, the Library is entering a 2nd phase of high priority troubleshooting of the ArchivesSpace application/environment. The new work team members are Ray Frohlich, Maureen Callahan, and me. We have assistance from half a dozen or more staff, and have moral support from an even greater number of staff. Thank you! Smiles and fist of solidarity sign welcome!

Please refer to our Project Plan here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z20GVHYnnQJ_rMeZPyiqBfc3m-oq0wr54husC9lLmJc/edit?usp=sharing

Some Reminders:

*         Direct all performance related issues to libraryit.entsys at yale.edu<mailto:libraryit.entsys at yale.edu> This is where they are best expressed, documented, and tracked.

*         An update on progress will be delivered to the yulaspace list each day, so if you know any colleagues not yet on this list, please encourage them to subscribe here: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/yulaspace

*         The work we have outlined for this 2nd phase of analysis may require periodic restarts or system downtime of the production AS environment. We would like to maintain a standard of a minimum of 30mins notice to users, before we have to take the system offline. This is during the intense analysis phase. Once we find a normal operating plane, there will be a different protocol. So thank you in advance for understanding that this phase may require more interruptions than normal.

What Happened Today:

*         Staff reported slow performance across the system. A system restart was done about 1pm and staff reported an improvement.

*         3+ hours of meeting time to review, discuss, and finalize the project plan

*         The process to rebuild a working AS index began at 3:30pm-we anticipate this might take up to 4 days, progress will be monitored

*         Conference call scheduled with an outside consulting group with expertise in MySQL

*         Changes log file created to record ongoing tuning measures across multiple instances

Work Must Continue in Special Collections:

*         A temporary, alternate platform for resource description is being vetted by archivists and we are waiting for their feedback. Essentially, until all issues are resolved in production AS, resource description would cease in ArchivesSpace. Instead, all repositories will share an instance of Archivists' Toolkit for authoring finding aids.

*         Archivists will request access to resource records (from a centralized place) and Mark Custer & Maureen Callahan will be responsible for getting those out of ArchivesSpace in EAD form, transforming them to a version of EAD that AT can ingest, and do any post-migration database transformations necessary to maintain data integrity. Requested resources will be available the next business day.

*         Then, all description work can happen in Archivists' Toolkit, and publication to YFAD can follow normal procedures.

*         Once ArchivesSpace is working at scale, Mark and Maureen will be responsible for bringing these resources back into ArchivesSpace.

*         Library IT will stand up a special instance of Archivists' Toolkit by Tuesday 7/28

*         Requests for resources to be brought from ArchivesSpace to AT can begin on Monday 7/27.


Our 2nd phase of work is a significant set of activity. This is a very intense process, coupled with a need for rapid turnaround.  Everyone shares the same goal of delivering and maintaining a solid archival management system.

Melissa Wisner
Library IT
2x5565
SML 507
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/yulaspace/attachments/20150723/25fe1a4e/attachment-0001.html