Request to Vet A Workflow for Providing Access

Request to Vet A Workflow for Providing Access to Material of Undetermined Cultural Sensitivity Status Scott Ziegler American Philosophical Society June 9, 2015 1

What To Expect from this (Very Fast) Talk ● Background about the APS and our history of collecting Native American-related material ● Brief introduction to our Protocols for the Treatment of Indigenous Materials ● Case study: using the Protocols for a Native American-related collection 2

Background: Collecting Material Related to Native Americans It all started with Thomas Jefferson. And it’s only got more complicated since then. 3

Protocols and Online Publishing “APS will follow these protocols in classifying materials and in honoring requests for viewing, reproduction of, or on-line publishing of indigenous materials that have been classified as either culturally sensitive or whose classification is yet undetermined. ” APS Protocols for the Treatment of Indigenous Materials, Article 2, Section B (http: //www. amphilsoc. org/library/protocols-for-indigenous-materials) 4

Putting our Practice Where our Policy Is; or, The Franz Boas Papers and Determining the Undetermined ● A little over 45, 000 letters ● All of them digitized and in the Digital Library ● Their classification is yet undetermined. 5

Options, Options Around 45, 000 letters, some of which might be culturally sensitive. We could: 1. Keep all the letters restricted forever 2. Open all the letters immediately 3. Find a middle road a. Restrict every letter until we vet it for cultural sensitivity. 6

Vetting ~45, 000 Letters: Where to Start? Option 1: Just start at the beginning o o Letters are arranged alphabetically We could just start with the A’s and end with the Z’s 7

Vetting ~45, 000 Letters: Where to Start? Option 2: Let scholars tell us what they’d like to see Not all of the items in the collection is of equal scholarly worth o The point of all of this is so people can use these items, let’s hear from those who use them o 8

Decision Made! ● We’ll restrict every letter until it is vetted. ● We’ll vet what scholars want to see. ● Items that are not culturally sensitive will be publically available through the Digital Library. The only thing left to do is … All the work 9

The Work: 1. Provide access to everyone in our Reading Room. 2. Restrict (at least for now) access to everyone else. 3. Create a workflow to vet each item. 4. Explain all of this to everyone. 10

The Work: 1. Provide access to everyone in our Reading Room. a. b. c. Auto log-in via IP Address; User roles via Drupal; Mirror public finding aids with in-house versions with links to digitized items. 2. Restrict (at least for now) access to everyone else. 3. Create a workflow to vet each item. 4. Explain all of this to everyone. 11

The Work: 1. Provide access to everyone in our Reading Room. 2. Restrict (at least for now) access to everyone else. a. b. XACML restrictions at the collection-level XACML policy set to cascade to sub-collection and items via Islandora settings 3. Create a workflow to vet each item. 4. Explain all of this to everyone. 12

The Work: 1. Provide access to everyone in our Reading Room. 2. Restrict access (at least for now) to everyone else. 3. Create a workflow to vet each item. a. b. c. Find the closest in-house workflow Modify it as needed See next 7 slides 4. Explain all of this to everyone. 13

Request Comes In Workflow Head of Manuscripts (Based on our Reference Request Workflow) Inspects Item Native American-related? Culturally Sensitive? CNAIR Yes/Maybe Yes No Proceed to Tribes No Change Description/ Unrestrict Item Contact Patron 14

The Usual Way Links in Finding Aids Lead Directly to Items in the Digital Library 15

But For Restricted Content We’d Have ~45, 000 Access Denied Links. 16

Between a Link and a Denied Page Info about why you’re seeing this form, and what info you should supply. “This item has not yet been vetted for cultural sensitivity concerns” A Webform: ● A chance to explain what we’re doing ● A chance for users to identify what they’d like to see ● Automates the tracking (via URL key) of the item j. Query popup for additional information and link to tutorial 17

Info From Form Date Submitted Item to Vet (auto-captured PID) Assigned to (Head of Mss, CNAIR staff) Needs more review: (yes/no) Item Cleared: (yes/no) Patron Contacted: (yes/no) ● Patrons add name and contact information ● Form collects more information than the patron sees o PID of item taken from URL o Default settings for admin fields 18

Clearing Item, Changing Links ● Remove XACML restriction at the item level ● Replace link to webform with link to item in Digital Library ● Send patron email with link 19

The Work: 1. Provide access to everyone in our Reading Room. 2. Restrict access (at least for now) to everyone else. 3. Create a workflow to vet each item. 4. Explain all of this to everyone. a. b. c. d. j. Query tooltips in finding aids with text and links; Tutorials; About pages; Boilerplate reference staff explanations 20

Where We Are Now ● Started all this in January 2015 ● As of early June, we’ve cleared just over 1, 000 letters with this workflow ● (Others are cleared in bulk in anticipation to specific requests through this workflow) ● Setting the framework for other collections in the future 21

Request An Object be Vetted! Visit http: //www. amphilsoc. org/library and follow the links to see the tutorials and notices. 22

Thank You! Scott Ziegler Web Development Library/Assistant Head of Technology American Philosophical Society sziegler@amphilsoc. org 23