Repository Websites (microsites)
Summary
Repository websites are "microsites" of the main Archives Hub currenty available to 'ac.uk' organisations. They provide an interface for descriptions from an individual Archives Hub contributor, enabling researchers to search across the descriptions of a single institution.
These individual repository sites resemble the Archives Hub interface very closely, with a few omissions concomitant on the nature of a single repository interface.
Differences to the Archives Hub:
- No list of holding repositories
- No information on holding repository
- No map of repositories
- No online resources or repository descriptions
Current Archives Hub Repository websites
- The University of Brighton Design Archives
- Brunel University Special Collections
- University of East London
- Glasgow University Archive Services
- Hatton Gallery
- Kingston University Archives
- The University of Manchester Special Collections
- University of Portsmouth Archives
- University of Salford Archives and Special Collections
- Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow Archives
- Newcastle University Special Collections and Archives
- University of Southampton Special Collections
Provision of repository sites
These sites are currently freely available to 'ac.uk' institutions that are Archives Hub contributors as part of Jisc's offering to the HE community.
If you are a contributor that is not .ac.uk, but you wish to have a site, please get in touch.
Requirements for repository sites
Email us to let us know that you are interested and we will be in touch with you. You will need to provide your logo, two colours and a background image that you wish to be used in your microsite. Other than that there is very little that you need to do, as the descrpitions will all be fed through from the Archives Hub data store.
Features of repository sites
The approach is very much template based. We cannot provide customisation or modify our sites for different contexts unless the costs can be covered.
A repository site will give you:
- A search/retrieve box for searching by keyword, title, creator ,date, reference, subject and name
- The option to search by 'all', 'any' and 'phrase'
- The option to search only collection level descriptions, or all levels of description
- Search results displayed as they are on the Hub, with the title as a clickable link to display the description
- Display of descriptions as they are displayed on the Hub, with navigation to search within the description (up and down the levels where appropriate)
- Display of a table of contents for multi-level descriptions, with an expanding folder structure and links to all levels of description
- Display of images and links to digital content
- Search within a multi-level description
- Direct links for descriptions that use our 'data' URIs with your local references
- An email link on every description
- The ability to reference every description in Twitter and on Facebook
- Use of your own logo (with link) and colours
You will not be able to browse across collections, because this functionality was developed to work with an aggregation of content and not for an individual contributor.
Further development
Development will depend upon resourcing and other priorities, but our intention is to ensure that the sites are sustainable over time, and therefore we will be keeping to the current template approach, with minimal customisation.
Development will always reflect the Archives Hub site; we will not be able to provide features for these sites separately from the main site.
We may look at subject based micro sites, which would provide an interface to a specific topic, using a keyword or subject search. This would require substantial revision of the configuration, so we cannot not provide subject based sites at present. However, we are interested to hear from anyone who has an interest in developing a subject based site.
Comments from current Archives Hub repsitory websites (microsites):
"We are truly delighted with the microsite - [it] will significantly improve the discoverability of our collections."
"We are a small archive who don't have an archival management system so we rely on the Archives Hub to enhance the discoverability of our collections. Having our own microsite is very welcome for those...who wish to specifically search our own collections only."
"The micro site has helped raise our profile on the Archives Hub and with researchers in general. Usage statistics already show that researchers are using the site and we are sure this will continue to build with time."
"For the first time we've been able to make our archives catalogue available to all of our users, rather than just those who visit in person"
"To have the option of working only with our own dataset makes a significant difference, especially for a specialist archive like ours. Being able to offer both options [the Hub and microsite] means we can meet a much wider range of researcher requirements."
"Our collections have always been accessible to users through the Archives Hub, however, the microsite gives an improved reading room experience, allowing researchers to undertake more focused searches across our collections, aiding navigation, and resulting in less confusion as to what records we hold."