Browse¶

Using the Hierarchy browser¶

If an administrator has enabled the Hierarchy browse options (see Treeview settings) users will also see a button to engage that view.

Clicking this button will take users to a full-page, full-width treeview containing all top-level descriptions in AtoM, called the hierarchy browser.

As with the current description treeview, each description in the hierarchy browse page that has children will display an “expand/collapse” icon that can be clicked to display all the children of that description. Any child descriptions that in turn have children will also be expandable.

A number in the top right corner of the page will indicate how many more descriptions can be seen in the hierarchy. Click on that number to bring up the next page of results.

The hierarchy browser will have the same functionality as the standard treeview, except:

• All top level description titles in the catalogue database will be shown in alphabetic order
• When lower level descriptions exist, an “expand/collapse” icon will be visible; clicking that icon will display lower levels in the order in which they are described
• The treeview will use the entire display area of the page, so the “gripper” to expand and shrink the vertical size of the treeview pane will not be necessary
• When a user clicks a description title in the hierarchy browse page,they will be redirected to the related archival description view page with the standard treeview (the user should then be able to return to the hierarchy browse page where they left off)
• No filters or facets will be available on the hierarchy browse page

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Using the top-level description filter¶

1. Using the Browse menu located in the The AtoM Header Bar, navigate to Browse > Archival descriptions. For more information on navigation in AtoM, see: Navigation in AtoM.
2. By default, AtoM will display only top-level parent records when arriving on the Browse page. This limits what you see to the highest levels of description.

3. Choose a description by clicking the hyperlink description name.
4. To see all child-l;evel descriptions, You can display all results by clicking the X on the “top-level descriptions” filter tag.
5. You can continue to refine your browsing using facet filter or Advanced search.

Using the “Part of” facet¶

When arriving on a search or browse page, you can use the “Part of” facet filter to limit results to children contained within an archival unit such as a fonds or collection. Note however that at present, the AtoM facet filters will only show the top 10 results for any facet - so this method will only work if your target archival unit is included in the facet’s display (see the section below on Using the top-level description filter if your target archival unit is not included in the “Part of” facet filter).

To use the “Part of” facet for limiting results to a single archival unit:

1. Using the Browse menu located in the The AtoM Header Bar, navigate to Browse > Archival descriptions.
2. Turn off the top-level descriptions filter. You can display all results by clicking the X on the “top-level descriptions” filter tag.
3. In the left-hand column, locate the “Part of” facet filter. The facet will display the top 10 results - e.g. those top-level records with the most children. For more information on using facet filters in AtoM, see: Facet filters
4. Click on the name of the archival unit (e.g. fonds or collection) whose lower-level records (children) you would like to explore.
5. AtoM will reload the page with the results filtered to the chosen archival unit. This will be indicated, and can be quickly removed, via the filter tag with the name of the unit at the top of the search/browse results page. You can continue to apply further facets and fliters as desired to narrow your results within the selected archival unit.

Using the “Browse as list” button¶

If you are already on the view page of an archival description that includes a descriptive hierarchy (i.e. a top-level description such as a fonds, collection, or series that has lower-level children), you can explore the descriptions contained in the archival unit using the browse buttons included in the “Explore” section of the right-hand context menu. For more information on context menu items in AtoM, see: Context menu and Recurring page elements.

There are two options for browsing within an archival unit included here - the “Browse as list” button, and the “Browse digital objects” button. Additionally, if it has been configured by an administrator, there may also be an option to view an inventory. This section will describe the “Browse as list” button - see the Browse digital objects button and Browse inventory list sections below for the other options in this part of the context menu.

To use the Browse as list button:

1. Navigate to an archival description that is part of the archival unit whose children you wish to explore - it does not have to be the top-level parent record. For more information on searching, browsing, and navigation in AtoM, see: Access content.
2. In the right-hand context menu, locate the Explore section - you will see browse options listed there, including the “Browse as list” button.

3. Click on the “Browse as list” link. AtoM will redirect you to a browse page, limited to the current archival unit - this will be indicated by the filter tag at the top of the browse page with the name of the top-level description. If you click the X to remove the filter tag, AtoM will reload all search/browse results (i.e. the page will no longer be limited to the selected archival unit).

4. You can continue to apply further facets and fliters as desired to narrow your results within the selected archival unit.

Using the “Browse digital objects” button¶

If you are already on the view page of an archival description that includes a descriptive hierarchy (i.e. a top-level description such as a fonds, collection, or series that has lower-level children), you can explore the descriptions contained in the archival unit using the browse buttons included in the “Explore” section of the right-hand context menu. For more information on context menu items in AtoM, see: Context menu and Recurring page elements.

There are two options for browsing within an archival unit included here - the “Browse as list” button, and the “Browse digital objects” button. Additionally, if it has been configured by an administrator, there may also be an option to view an inventory. This section will describe the “Browse digital objects” button - see the Browse digital objects button section above, and the Browse inventory list section below for the other options in this part of the context menu.

The “Browse digital objects” button will allow you to explore the digital objects associated with descriptions included in the target archival unit, on a dedicated browse page described in the Browse digital objects section below, but limited to that specific descriptive hierarchy.

To use the Browse digital objects button:

1. Navigate to an archival description that is part of the archival unit whose children you wish to explore - it does not have to be the top-level parent record. For more information on searching, browsing, and navigation in AtoM, see: Access content.
2. In the right-hand context menu, locate the Explore section - you will see browse options listed there, including the “Browse digital objects” button.

3. Click on the “Browse digital objects” link. AtoM will redirect you to a digital object browse page, limited to the current archival unit - this will be indicated by the filter tag at the top of the browse page with the name of the top-level description. If you click the X to remove the filter tag, AtoM will reload all digital object browse results (i.e. the page will no longer be limited to the selected archival unit).

4. You can continue to apply further facets and fliters as desired to narrow your results within the selected archival unit.

Using the Inventory list¶

The Inventory list allows an administrator to make a page of lower- level descriptions contained within a parent record available on a separate inventory page formatted as a table with sortable columns.

If there are a lot of lower-level descriptions (for example, many files and items in a series), this can be a useful way to quickly browse the contents of the archival unit - and the sortable columns can be used to sort and view the lower-level children in a way that the treeview does not allow. Columns in the inventory page include:

• Identifier
• Title
• Level of description
• Date
• Digital object
• Clipboard link

Only the digital object and the Clipboard columns are not sortable.

The Digital object column will provide an indication of whether or not there is a digital object attached to the description - if so, the row will have a hyperlink called “View” in the Digital object column. Clicking on the “View” link will take a user directly to the master digital object - if a user does not have permission to view the master, the column’s value will be empty for that row.

The clipboard column contains links indicated by the paper clip icon. Clicking on one of these will add the description in the related row directly to the Clipboard. For more information on working with the Clipboard, see: Clipboard.

Configuring the inventory list

Whether or not the Inventory link appears on a particular description will depend on how it has been configured in the settings page - there, an administrator determines which levels of description will be included (see: Inventory for more information). If the current archival description you are viewing does not include lower-level child descriptions matching the settings, no link will appear.

Because it is configurable, an inventory list may not include ALL lower-level records available in a particular archival unit. For example, if you viewed the inventory page from a fonds-level description that included sub-fonds, series, files, and items, but the administrator has configured the inventory settings to display only files and items, then at the fonds level, the inventory list will display all files and items (including those contained within lower-level subfonds and series), but the subfonds and series records themselves will not be included on the inventory page.

Similarly, the Inventory link will only appear on parent records - for example, if you are viewing a file that is part of a series, you would need to navigate to the series record to see the inventory link.

To use the Inventory list:

1. Navigate to the archival description whose children you would like to explore. For more information on navigation in AtoM, see: Access content.

2. If the description includes children that match the inventory settings configured by the administrator (see: Inventory), then an “Inventory” link will appear in the right-hand context menu, in the Explore section:

3. Click on the “Inventory” link. AtoM will redirect you to the inventory list of lower-level records for the chosen description.

4. The Inventory list page will include the title of the parent description, as well as a breadcrumb trail back to the top-level description for the archival unit. On the right-hand side of the page, a button to return to the view page of the parent archival description is also included.
5. The column headers of the inventory list that appear in blue can be clicked to sort the inventory list by that column. Clicking again will reverse the sort order of the column (for example, from A-Z to Z-A). The only column that cannot be sorted is the Digital objects column.
6. The Digital object column will indicate whether or not there is a digital object associated with the archival description listed in the inventory list row. If there is, and the user has sufficient permissions to view the master digital object, then AtoM will provide a direct link to the master digital object.

7. If there are more than 10 results, a pager, with a count of the total number of results above it, will be included at the bottom of the page.

Using the Quick search bar’s browse option¶

The view page for an archival description includes a feature known as the Treeview Quick search - it allows a user to quickly search an archival unit for a specific lower-level description. Instructions on how to use it can be found at:

• Treeview quick search

However, whenever a search query is returned with at least 1 matching result, a link that allows a user to browse all descriptions in a dedicated search/browse page, limited to the current archival unit, is also included:

If you click the “Browse all descriptions” link included at the bottom of the Quick search results, AtoM will redirect you to a search/browse results page, limited to the current archival unit.

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Browse the holdings of an institution¶

When a user clicks on a result in the archival institution browse page, they are taken to the view page for the selected repository.

This view page includes a list of holdings - archival descriptions that have been linked to the current repository. For more information on linking a description to an archival institution, see: Link an archival description to an archival institution.

The holdings list can be used to browse the holdings of a particular archival institution, which can be especially useful in a multi-repository AtoM instance, such as a union catalogue, portal site, or network. It appears in the left-hand context menu of the view page for an archival institution, beneath the logo.

The search box on the holdings list will search all indexed fields in all descriptions related to the archival institution. When used, it will take the user to a full search results page, limited to the current institution (as indicated by the filter tag at the top of the search results).

See Search for archival descriptions for more information on using the search results page.

Below the search box, is a holdings browse link, that lists the total number of holdings (e.g. top-level descriptions linked to the repository). Clicking on this link will take a user to a browse page limited to the current repository, and filtered to display only top-level descriptions. Users can remove these filters by clicking the X next to the filter tag to broaden the results. See Browse archival descriptions above for more information on browsing archival descriptions in AtoM.

Below the search box and holdings browse link, an alphabetized holdings list appears. The list consists of hyperlinks - clicking on one will take the user to the related description. The number of results in this list per page is controlled by the “results per page” setting found in Admin > Settings > Global. See: Results per page for information on changing this value. The default value in AtoM is 10 results per page.

A holdings count appears under the holdings list, which includes the number of results per page, and the total - e.g. Results 1 to 10 of 45, etc.

If there are more holdings than the number of results per page, a pager will be included below. Click the <- back and forward -> arrows to move through the pages. The current page number is listed between the navigation arrows. For large results sets, you can also manually enter a number into the current page number box - the holdings list will jump to the appropriate page. Any invalid numbers (e.g. entering 1000 when there are only 10 pages) will be ignored, and after a moment, AtoM will replace the value with the current page number.

Browse institution holdings when Institutional scoping is enabled¶

AtoM includes an additional mode that can be enabled by an administrator via Admin > Settings > Global called Enable institutional scoping. When institutional scoping is turned on, additional visual cues and user interface elements are added to better support searching and browsing within the holdings of one archival institution when used in a multi-repository system. The most prominent of these changes in the user interface is the addition of the institution block, comprised of the repository logo, as well a dedicated search box and browse menu that will both return results linked to the current archival institution.

The holdings list behaves the same as before (see above, Browse the holdings of an institution, for more information on how to use the holdings list). However, if you click on the holdings browse link, then the institution block will also appear on the browse page, offering an additional visual cue that you are viewing only the holdings of a particular institution.

You can remove the insitutional scoping and see all global browse results a number of different ways:

• By clicking the X on the filter tag for the repository at the top of the browse results - this removes the repository filter. AtoM will reload the Browse page without the institution block and show all results.
• By clicking the “All” link in the Archival institution facet filter - this also removes the repository filter. AtoM will reload the Browse page without the institution block and show all results.
• By using the browse menu located in the AtoM header bar at the top of the page and selecting Browse > Archival descriptions.
• By performing a search via the global search box in the AtoM header bar at the top of the page. AtoM will return global results from all repositories when the global search box is used.

For more information on using the elements of the archival description browse page, see: Browse archival descriptions.

Additionally, the institution block introduces a dedicated browse menu for the holdings of the archival institution. The links in this menu will take users to browse pages that are already limited to the holdings of the current repository.

If you follow these links, the institution block will remain visible on the related browse page, and if a background color has been applied to the instituion, it will also be present on the browse page.

Institution scoping can again be removed at any time from these browse pages using the methods described above.

Browse the authority records of an institution¶

If an institution has linked its authority records (indicating that it is the institution responsible for maintaining them), then a list, similar to the holdings list, will appear on the archival institution view page. For more information on linking an authority record to a repository, see: Link an authority record to a repository as its maintainer.

The maintained authority records list can be used to browse the authority records of a particular archival institution, which can be especially useful in a multi-repository AtoM instance, such as a union catalogue, portal site, or network. It appears in the left-hand context menu of the view page for an archival institution, beneath the logo and the holdings list.

At the top of the maintained list is a browse link, that lists the total number of authority records maintained by the repository. Clicking on this link will take a user to an authority record browse page limited to the current repository. See Browse people, families and organizations for more information on browsing.

Below the browse link, an alphabetized list of authority records appears. The list consists of hyperlinks - clicking on one will take the user to the related authority record. The number of results in this list per page is controlled by the “results per page” setting found in Admin > Settings > Global. See: Results per page for information on changing this value. The default value in AtoM is 10 results per page.

A count appears under the maintained authority records list, which includes the number of results per page, and the total - e.g. Results 1 to 10 of 45, etc.

If there are more maintained authority records than the number of results per page, a pager will be included below. Click the <- back and forward -> arrows to move through the pages. The current page number is listed between the navigation arrows. For large results sets, you can also manually enter a number into the current page number box - the list will jump to the appropriate page. Any invalid numbers (e.g. entering 1000 when there are only 10 pages) will be ignored, and after a moment, AtoM will replace the value with the current page number.

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Hierarchical terms and browse results¶

When terms are organized hierarchically in a taxonomy (e.g. nested within broader terms, with a parent to child relationship), and a child term is added as an access point to an archival description, AtoM includes the parent terms as well for context. This is expressed as a breadcrumb trail on archival descriptions in the Access points information area, as shown in the Places example below:

In the above example, the user has added the term “Waterloo” to the description - but the term is organized hierarchically in the Places taxonomy, and its parent terms are inherited. Because of this, when browsing results for the parent term “Waterloo, Regional Municipality of”, the example description will appear, even though the term was not directly added.

For users who would only like to see results where the current term has been directly added, a link is provided at the top of the results, with a count of directly related results:

Click the “Exclude narrower terms” button at the top of the results, and AtoM will reload the page, displaying only archival description results where the term has been directly added (and not inherited from a narrower term).

A filter tag appears at the top of the narrowed search results indicating that only directly-related results are being displayed. To return to the previous view of all results, click the X on the filter tag - AtoM will reload the page and return to displaying all related results.