Sites Cleanup: The Clone Wars Kara M. Lewis, Collections Information Program Manager Patricia L. Nietfeld, Collections Manager Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian

Long, long ago…in 2006… NMAI migrated all geographical data from two legacy databases into the Sites module in EMu Much of the data was not standardized Much of the data was “duplicate” information Made the decision to migrate “as is” and use the tools in EMu to clean it up As a result…

The Plot

The Conflict ~39,000 Unique combinations ~90,000 Sites records created ~337,500 Catalog records affected At least half were duplicates, or data was in the wrong field The rest were “variations,” obsolete place names, misspellings, or just plain wrong

The Plan of Attack

“Do or do not. There is no try.” Conventions: –No abbreviations no St. for Saint –Names in language of country –Alternate versions in parentheses Lac Saint-Jean (Lake Saint John) –Use 1 st level political subdivision Ecuador, Manabí Province –Use current names

“Do or do not. There is no try.” Conventions: –Country – Region? – State Pará State, North Region –Subdivisions on case by case basis –Leave blank if can’t determine higher subdivision - Fill it in if known - Most specific info. in Provenience

“You must unlearn what you have learned.” What Pat did not do: –Not a lot of energy spent on US state archaeological site numbers –This was cleanup, not verification

“Control, control, you must learn control!” Started with spreadsheet unique combinations of geographical data Split into smaller spreadsheets by state or country Learn about the country

“Ready are you? What know you of ready?” Content Resources: –General: Wikipedia, Statoids.com –International Travel Maps and Books of Vancouver, Canada –Country’s official website –Archaeological websites –Indigenous peoples’ websites –Government agencies –Maplandia.com –Google, JSTOR –MAI publications

“It is the future you see.” Nomenclature Resources: –US: Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) –Canada: Geographical Names Search Service (GNNS) –Others: GEOnet Names Server (GNS)

The worksheets (83 in total)

The Implementation in EMu Contractors do not have to be content experts Create new Sites, rather than “reuse” Practice first I do the actual deletions

The Confrontation 1.Start in the Sites module 2.Create list view with all fields 3.Search and group “old” Sites

The Confrontation 4.Open 2 nd window and create “new” Sites. 5.Find the unique combos of Sites and Provenience in Catalog 6.Check the “Collection” field

The Confrontation Start with Objects – usually “one to one” replacement Sort & highlight those to receive new Site Replace old IRN with new IRN Replace not Replace All Replace the Provenience in those already changed

The Confrontation Photo Archives is a different story Each record created a new Site record = duplicates Many IRNs to replace per “new” Site record Instead, use periods to represent wildcards…

The Confrontation Replace not Replace All Then go through Provenience as before Start with the number of digits that matches the “new” IRN

The Climax Double check with View>Attachments>Selected Records When spreadsheet completed, retire the “old” Sites

The Climax Contractors let me know what is retired Double check that all are detached DELETE!

Triumph! New data export to check unique values Checked with Pat on questions Final spreadsheet given to contractor

The Resolution We now have just under 15,500 Sites Records We finished in one year Averaged 2 contractors at a time Module is now tightly controlled Data is ready for the web

The End (or is it??) Sites was just the beginning… Kara M. Lewis, Collections Information Program Manager Patricia L. Nietfeld, Collections Manager