Trying ArchivesSpace's OAI Repository

Overview

ArchivesSpace is described as follows.

https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace

Built for archives by archivists, ArchivesSpace is the open source archives information management application for managing and providing web access to archives, manuscripts and digital objects.

This article tries out the OAI Repository feature provided by ArchivesSpace.

https://archivesspace.github.io/tech-docs/architecture/oai-pmh/

Configuration

This time, we use the ArchivesSpace demo site.

Access the following page and configure the necessary settings.

https://sandbox.archivesspace.org/staff/oai_config/edit

Retrieving the List of Metadata Formats

The list of metadata formats was retrieved using the following.

https://sandbox.archivesspace.org/oai?verb=ListMetadataFormats

The result is shown below. We can confirm that oai_dc, oai_ead, oai_dcterms, oai_marc, and oai_mods are available.

<OAI-PMH xmlns="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/OAI-PMH.xsd">
<script/>
<responseDate>2024-02-26T12:11:15Z</responseDate>
<request verb="ListMetadataFormats">https://sandbox.archivesspace.org/</request>
<ListMetadataFormats>
<metadataFormat>
<metadataPrefix>oai_dc</metadataPrefix>
<schema>http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd</schema>
<metadataNamespace>http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/</metadataNamespace>
</metadataFormat>
<metadataFormat>
<metadataPrefix>oai_ead</metadataPrefix>
<schema>https://www.loc.gov/ead/ead.xsd</schema>
<metadataNamespace>http://www.loc.gov/ead/</metadataNamespace>
</metadataFormat>
<metadataFormat>
<metadataPrefix>oai_dcterms</metadataPrefix>
<schema>http://dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/qdc/2008/02/11/dcterms.xsd</schema>
<metadataNamespace>http://purl.org/dc/terms/</metadataNamespace>
</metadataFormat>
<metadataFormat>
<metadataPrefix>oai_marc</metadataPrefix>
<schema>https://www.loc.gov/standards/marcxml/schema/MARC21slim.xsd</schema>
<metadataNamespace>http://www.loc.gov/MARC21/slim</metadataNamespace>
</metadataFormat>
<metadataFormat>
<metadataPrefix>oai_mods</metadataPrefix>
<schema>https://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-6.xsd</schema>
<metadataNamespace>http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3</metadataNamespace>
</metadataFormat>
</ListMetadataFormats>
</OAI-PMH>

Retrieving the List of Sets

The list of sets was retrieved using the following.

https://sandbox.archivesspace.org/oai?verb=ListSets

The result is shown below. We can confirm that sets are configured for each fonds and series.

<OAI-PMH xmlns="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/OAI-PMH.xsd">
<script/>
<responseDate>2024-02-26T12:12:27Z</responseDate>
<request verb="ListSets">https://sandbox.archivesspace.org/</request>
<ListSets>
<set>
<setSpec>class</setSpec>
<setName>class</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>collection</setSpec>
<setName>collection</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>file</setSpec>
<setName>file</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>fonds</setSpec>
<setName>fonds</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>item</setSpec>
<setName>item</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>otherlevel</setSpec>
<setName>otherlevel</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>recordgrp</setSpec>
<setName>recordgrp</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>series</setSpec>
<setName>series</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>subfonds</setSpec>
<setName>subfonds</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>subgrp</setSpec>
<setName>subgrp</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>subseries</setSpec>
<setName>subseries</setName>
</set>
</ListSets>
</OAI-PMH>
...

Retrieving a List of Records

We retrieve the list of collection records as follows.

The following uses oai_ead as the metadata format.

https://sandbox.archivesspace.org/oai?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_ead&set=collection

<OAI-PMH xmlns="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/OAI-PMH.xsd">
<script/>
<responseDate>2024-02-26T12:18:16Z</responseDate>
<request metadataPrefix="oai_ead" set="collection" verb="ListRecords">https://sandbox.archivesspace.org/</request>
<ListRecords>
<record>
<header>
<identifier>oai:archivesspace//repositories/2/resources/2</identifier>
<datestamp>2022-04-28T21:28:13Z</datestamp>
</header>
<metadata>
<ead xmlns="urn:isbn:1-931666-22-9" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="urn:isbn:1-931666-22-9 http://www.loc.gov/ead/ead.xsd">
<eadheader countryencoding="iso3166-1" dateencoding="iso8601" langencoding="iso639-2b" repositoryencoding="iso15511">
<eadid countrycode="US"/>
<filedesc>
<titlestmt>
<titleproper>
A Guide to the Diary of Emma Cummins Snively Crosier Pauling
<num>A0059</num>
<num>A0059</num>
</titleproper>
<author>Clara Scholtz, Intern.</author>
</titlestmt>
...

This corresponds to the following collection.

https://sandbox.archivesspace.org/staff/resources/2#tree::resource_2

Summary

I tried out the OAI Repository feature of ArchivesSpace. It appears that there are many possible applications for programmatically retrieving information published in ArchivesSpace.

I hope this serves as a useful reference when considering the adoption of ArchivesSpace.

Overview#

Configuration#

Retrieving the List of Metadata Formats#

Retrieving the List of Sets#

Retrieving a List of Records#

Summary#