[Archon-L] Using Archon as a union catalog

[Jason Fowler]

This is somewhat longish.

I am working with the Association of Librarians and Archivists at Baptist Institutions (ALABI). The group is comprised of various types of archivists. Some have a pretty high technical threshold, and some do not. Some have formal training, and others have little archival training.

We would like to use Archon to create a type of union catalog for manuscripts and archives held in Baptist Institutions of all stripes. Using Archon as a union catalog would offer the members of the group several advantages. First, the smaller repositories wouldn't have to manage installations. Most of the smaller institutions do not have the resources to manage Archon, even as simple as it is.But if someone could manage one installation for the group, the smaller institutions could be involved, with a little training. Second, it would allow researchers looking for Baptist Materials one-stop-shopping for many of their research needs. Denominational entities, Baptist Colleges and Seminaries, and small Baptist associations could all put their material in one location.

As far as I can tell, Archon would be an ideal system for this type of union catalog except for one thing: it doesn't allow each repository to define its own classification.

So, my question is this. Does anyone know how difficult it would be to change the code so that Archon could support a distinct classification for each repository?

>From what I can tell, on the database level, it looks pretty simple. I might could get away with simply adding a RepositoryID column to the tblCollections_Classifications table.

However, I'm curious about how many changes would have to be made in the code to allow this to happen.

I'm also curious if any of the developers would have any interest in adding this type of functionality to Archon. There could be other groups who would desire this type of functionality as well.

Jason Fowler, CA
Archives and Special Collections Librarian
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
502-897-4573
jfowler at sbts.edu