[Yale ArchivesSpace] Update on ArchivesSpace

[Wisner, Melissa]

Hello Everyone,

There are several updates to share on ArchivesSpace efforts.

Hosted ArchivesSpace Evaluation

*         Ray, Maureen and I participated in a discussion with Lyrasis last week about the proposed project to evaluate their hosting service for ASpace. We are outlining a project proposal and timeline. Ideally the evaluation period will begin October 1, and it will involve testing several environment configurations that may meet or exceed the current production hardware at YUL.

*         We also talked to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the University of Southern California about their experience as hosted AS customers. Both sites are small in comparison to YUL, but the calls were helpful steps in gathering data about this service and whether it will work for YUL. USC does have a custom plugin for Aeon in use with ASpace and indicated Lyrasis has continued to maintain it in the hosted environment. This area is of particular importance to YUL due to our many customized plugins.

*         We are also discussing terms and conditions we would need in documents such as a Service Level Agreement, and written policies on data security and data retention.

*          A critical stipulation I would like to negotiate is for Lyrasis to support YUL at least one core release earlier than their current general release (e.g. support us on 1.3 even if 1.4 is the general release). Typically in a hosted arrangement, Lyrasis alerts customers 2 weeks prior to a planned upgrade in production. I want YUL to have more management of that activity. This will allow YUL flexibility in scheduling upgrades to ASpace, and will provide additional time if needed to modify plugins.

HM Development

*         HM is working on analysis of our production ASpace indexing issues. Work is taking place during North American evenings, due to the time difference with Australia. This is an effort to hold more real time conversations during the troubleshooting period.

*         Approval has been received for HM to update Yale plugins for compliance with version 1.3 of ArchivesSpace. HM will begin this work, estimated at 30 hours, once the indexing analysis is complete.

*         We are hoping both the index analysis and plugin work completes by the end of next week, so those changes can be promoted to production ASpace.

Preparing for ASpace ver 1.3

*         Work is starting in Library IT to prepare the development instance of ASpace for upgrading to 1.3

*         This is a critical step to support the two previously mentioned updates. Readying a local instance for 1.3 gives us a head start for testing the plugins when they are delivered by HM. It also is a requirement for starting the Lyrasis hosting evaluation. Lyrasis needs our database to be a core code release and confirmation that all plugins are compliant with 1.3, before they bring it into a hosted environment.


An important point of negotiation, both philosophical and practical (my favorite kind!), is that ASpace is an open source product. Any development therefore begins with customization. Lyrasis states they need to host customers with a core code release. I understand why from a support pov, however reality is ASpace is meant to be customized. We did hear from USC that Lyrasis has supported the custom Aeon plugin they use with ASpace, but YUL has more than one. Even if we never added others, we will always be in a state of customization, modifying the current set as required to maintain compliance with ASpace core code changes. As we evaluate the hosting service, we need to have an open conversation with Lyrasis about the ongoing needs of a site the size of YUL, our commitment to support the development of ASpace as a modern collection management system, and what we would expect in compromise or exchange.

Please let us know if you have any questions about these areas of work, or other aspects of ArchivesSpace performance efforts.

Melissa Wisner
Library IT
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