Linear to Granular: Preparing Descriptions for an ArchivesSpace Migration

This article describes and analyzes the data cleanup undertaken at Georgia State University’s Special Collections and Archives (GSU) to migrate collection descriptions from Archivist’s Toolkit (AT) to ArchivesSpace. Specific work described includes revising and consolidating name and subject headings stored in the AT database and reformatting AT resources (finding aids) that had been created in Encoded Archival Description to mimic an older paper inventory format. The article looks back to the earliest finding aids at GSU and traces their development along with the evolution of archival descriptive formats, identifying practices that led, even in AT, to creating finding aids with a linear structure. With the migration complete, the collection descriptions are now in ArchivesSpace, which integrates description creation, storage, and display in a single database. Having collection data and presentation in the same system will change practices, and its interface will affect user interaction with finding aids.