Documentation

Below are documents created by the Arca Office, specifically in support of Arca sites. Most of the information therein may also be applied to other Islandora sites.

See also: our Frequently Asked Questions page.

For general or basic Islandora tasks and functions, see the Islandora documentation wiki. For guides produced by other Islandora users, see the External Documentation page.

  • Batch Ingest - Best Practices

    How to set up batch ingests, structure ingest packages, and when/how to do it yourself vs. sending to the Arca Office.

  • Batch Ingest using Islandora Multi-Importer

    Detailed instructions for using Islandora Multi-Importer to batch ingest objects using a CSV of metadata and a ZIP of object files.

  • Capturing Metadata for Batch Ingesting

    Are you digitising a new collection for your Arca repository? Find out how to create a spreadsheet of your metadata for easy batch ingesting into your Arca repository via the Move to Islandora Kit. 

  • Compound Objects

    What are compound objects, how to create them, configuring the Solution Pack, and how to make sure their metadata displays correctly.

  • Configuration for new sites

    Basic configuration, including:

    • Theme and logo settings
    • Site name and contact info setup
    • XACML access restrictions
    • OAI-PMH feed
    • Analytics
    • Site users, roles, and permissions
  • Configuring display of search, browse, and Solr metadata

    Instructions for configuring the way that search results, facets, object records and browse pages display in your Arca repository. Includes instructions for customising your Browse Collection list display using the Collection Items Details View.

  • Content models
    The content models available in Arca, and recommendations for how to use them.
  • Customizing Search Results

    How to modify Solr search results, including sort, defined query fields, and filtering.

  • Further customization

    A miscellany of suggested customizations, including:

    • Custom styling with CSS Injector
    • Displaying citation counts and Altmetrics
    • Sorting options
    • Small modules such as maps, downloadable large images, etc.

    Frequently updated as new ideas and modules come out.

  • Ingest manual
    Guidelines to help those ingesting. Covers all the commonly-used content models, with guidelines for individual fields found on their ingest forms, and controlled vocabulary suggestions.
  • Islandora WestVault setup and use

    How to use Islandora WestVault to preserve your repository objects.

  • Maintenance Tasks

    Monthly maintenance tasks to make sure your repository is uncluttered and your storage is not being wasted.

  • Metadata Display Profiles

    How to select the metadata fields that will be shown when viewing an object.

  • Migrating and Sharing Objects

    How to move an object from one collection to another, and sharing objects between multiple collections.

  • Repository content vs. website content

    Guidelines for what kinds of digital content belongs in the repository, vs. what should be hosted as simple Drupal content on your Islandora site.

  • Self-Submission Approaches

    Suggested approaches for enabling self-submission in your repository.

  • Traditional Knowledge Labels - Administrators

    Detailed instructions on implementing Traditional Knowledge Labels for Administrators.

  • Traditional Knowledge Labels - Islandora

    Detailed instructions on implementing Traditional Knowledge Labels in Islandora.

  • Use Taxonomies for controlled vocabularies in XML forms

    The CT Digital Archive created this guide to demonstrate how Drupal taxonomies can be used to create autocomplete controlled vocabularies in Islandora ingest forms.

  • Useful Solr Fields

    A list of useful Solr fields for displaying search results, faceting, sorting, etc. Lists the fields that should be used for certain types of metadata, and fields that should be avoided.

  • Using a Virtual Machine

    You can use a local virtual machine to test changes and add test content without affecting your live Arca repository. This is highly recommended.