Editing Volume Info & Re-sequencing

Table of Contents

Adding or Changing Volume Information

Re-sequencing

Why do volumes appear out of order in BHL?

Editing Contributor, Rights Holder & Scanning Institution fields

Appendix: Start/End Year parsing from Volume Metadata

Adding or Changing Volume Information

1. Identify the title ID corresponding to the items/volumes you want to work with and use the Titles module to bring up the record in the Admin Dash.  For more information on this please refer to the Getting started with BHL Administrative Dashboard tutorial.

(Titles option in the Library Functions box)

(TitleID box shown with title ID 43746.)

2. Scroll down to the “Title Items” list which contains a list of all items/volumes associated with this title.

(Title Items section listing all items associated with this title)

3. To add or edit volume information, select the hyperlink for what is listed as the “Barcode” for each item. When you click on this “Barcode,” you will be taken to the administration screen for that particular item.

(Example of a “Barcode” to click on to add/edit item level information)

4. From the “Item” screen, you can edit any information associated with a volume/item. In the “Volume:” text box add the correct information. Hit “Save” at bottom left of screen.

(Added volume information)

5. Copy chronology information in the “Year” field placing the Start and End Years as appropriate. If the item does not span multiple years, leave the End Year empty. This field will not display in the BHL website but is important for backend functionality. We may be able to search and/or facet on the “Year” field at a later date.
   
   If the Start and End year fields are left blank, BHL will attempt to extract the Start and End years from the Volume field. Please see the appendix for more details.

6. Once you have made the appropriate edits to the item in question, you can return to the title screen by clicking on the title designated as “Primary” under the “Titles” section of the item screen. If there are multiple titles associated with this item, you will need to select the appropriate option which is usually the title for which the “Primary” box is selected.

(Title designated as “Primary” for this item)

7. Repeat the above process until all items have the appropriate volume information, being sure to hit “Save” for each volume/item as you complete your edits.

Re-sequencing

Once you have edited volume information, you may need to resequence the items so that they display in the correct order for users.

8. For each item for which you want to move the sequence location, click the “Edit Sequence” button associated with the item and, in the text box that appears, enter the numerical value for the position in the sequence of items that you want this item to move to.

(“Edit Sequence” button on title administration screen)

(Text box in which to enter the numerical value of the position in the sequence you wish this item to move to)

9. Once you have entered this value, hit the “Update” button for the item. Repeat until all items are appropriately sequenced. Do not forget to save your work by clicking on the “Save” button at the bottom of the title administration screen. It’s highly recommended that you save periodically as you re-sequence to prevent loss of your work!

(“Update” button for the item)

(Save at the bottom of the title administration screen)

NOTE: Same numbered volumes should be sequenced together. For example:

Keep indexes grouped together in order and file at the end of the series.

Sequence supplements (including appendices) with the related volume.

For instance, place Supplement to v. 49 under the entry for v. 49.  

In cases where supplements are independent of the enumeration of the parent series, group them together at the end of the series, although ideally, create a separate  bibliographic record for such supplements.

If a supplement or appendix does not state actually state “Supplement” or “Appendix” but is clearly one, put that term in brackets: [Suppl.] [Appendix]

If there are several such items issued in different years, then it could be

            [Appendix] (1877)

            [Appendix] (1890)

Note, however, that in most cases, a separate bibliographic record for such items is warranted.

Why do volumes appear out of order in BHL?

[Via Mike Lichtenberg, BHL Developer *Extraordinaire*]

Update: New items are now automatically assigned a number of 10000+ in an effort to make them appear automatically at the bottom of the volume list. The explanation below applies to items ingested prior to May 2016.

Only numeric characters are considered when auto-sequencing occurs.  Spaces, periods, commas, parentheses, “v.” vs “vol.”… none of those make any difference.

These three examples are seen as equivalent by that process… “v.1 (2014)”, “v. 1 (2014)”, and “v. 1, 2014” are all reduced to “12014” for the purpose of auto-sequencing.

Having the Year in the volume string actually causes some problems. Consider:

No. 1 (2000-01)

No. 2 (2002)

No. 3 (2003)

Those will be auto-sequenced using the values 1200001, 22002, 32003… so the volume that should be first will actually end up last.  Having said that, the existence or non-existence of Year in the volume string is not the only thing that affects the auto-sequencing. Consider:

v.1-3 (1899)

v.2 (1900)

v.3 (1901)

Those are sequenced using 131899, 21900, 31901… again the first volume ends up last.

Auto-sequencing problems occur with multi-volume and multi-year items, or with items where the volume strings are inconsistent.  An example of inconsistent volume strings is:

Vol.1 (1850)

Vol.2 (1851)

Vol.3 Part 1 (1852)

Vol.3 Part 2 (1852)

Vol.4 (1853)

These are auto-sequenced with 11850, 21851, 311852, 321852, 41853.  In this case, the two “Vol.3” items fall to the end of the sequence.

Editing Contributor, Rights Holder & Scanning Institution fields

As of July 2016 new fields are now available as part of the Item/Volume metadata. The new fields are:

Rights Holder: Entity granting permission for inclusion in BHL collection. URL linking to entity website to be provided if available. For born-digital content, the Rights Holder will also be the Contributor.

Scanning Institution: Entity digitizing/uploading materials to BHL collection ONLY IF different from contributor. Field will display ONLY IF present.

Appendix: Start/End Year parsing from Volume Metadata

When years are entered as part of the Volume string, AND the Start/End Year fields are left blank, the year values will be parsed from the Volume strings and saved in the Start/End Year fields.

For example, if the following is entered by the user...

Volume:  v.1 (1902-1906)
Start Year:
End Year:

... when the Item is saved, the following is saved to the database...

Volume:  v.1 (1902-1906)
Start Year: 1902
End Year: 1906

The parser will handle many year variations.  For example:

• (1900-1910)
• (1900)
• (1900-10)
• [1900]

The parser will attempt to find the year values even if the Volume string is complex.  For example, "v. 1: no. 1-5 (1906-1907)" or "v. 9:sect. C (1914) [Botany]".

In testing, the parser proved to be accurate more than 95% of the time.  However, due to the many variations of how data is represented in Volume strings, it is NOT accurate 100% of the time.  Therefore, if a user relies on the parser to populate the Year fields it is recommended that the user verify that the Year values are correct after the Item is saved.