aspace-wb-scripts

Scripts to aid American Philosophical Society (APS) staff in preparing CSV files for ingest into Islandora 8 using Workbench. Scripts are provided for the following tasks:

• Generate a simplified, fillable version of a Workbench sheet with some data prepopulated (from your media files and, optionally, from an ArchivesSpace bulk update spreadsheet)
• Validate that you have filled in your simplified Workbench sheet correctly
• Convert your simplified Workbench sheet into a final Workbench sheet in the format required for Digital Library ingest
• After your files have been ingested, use your Workbench output CSV to create ArchivesSpace digital objects

For fuller explanation of the Workbench fields, see the APS Digital Library Metadata Guidelines.

Installation

1. In your terminal, navigate to your Desktop and create a folder for the code:

mkdir aspace-wb-scripts

2. Navigate into the folder:

cd aspace-wb-scripts

3. Create a python virtual environment and install the package for local use:

On Windows:

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\activate

On Linux/WSL:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

4. Install the package from PyPI with pip:

pip install aspace-wb-scripts

5. Create the required directories files_to_upload and metadata:

mkdir files_to_upload
mkdir metadata

Get updates

To get the most recent version of this code, cd to the directory where you created the virtual environment. Activate the virtual environment (see step 2 above) and run:

pip install --upgrade aspace-wb-scripts

Usage

Access appropriate directory

If you haven't done so already, cd into the directory where the package is installed, filling in your username and the appropriate path. Then activate your virtual environment.

In Windows PowerShell:

cd C:\Users\username\Desktop\aspace-wb-scripts
.venv\Scripts\activate

In VSCode terminal or Git Bash:

cd C:/Users/username/Desktop/aspace-wb-scripts
.venv/Scripts/activate

Prepare necessary files

Prepare media files (highly recommended)

• Copy your media files into files_to_upload. Do NOT run the script directly on files in the Digital Library Staging Area.
• Your files should be named according to CDS guidelines.

(If your files are too large to copy, see below for how to specify an alternate file path.)

Prepare bulk update spreadsheet (recommended)

If the collection you're ingesting already has a finding aid, you can follow these steps to populate additional data from ArchivesSpace.

• Download an ArchivesSpace bulk update spreadsheet: in the staff interface on ArchivesSpace, find the collection you're working on and click "More" -> "Bulk Update Spreadsheet". Select as many series as you want to include. Under "Column types to include in spreadsheet," leave everything checked. Click "Download Spreadsheet."
• In Excel, unprotect the sheet. Keep the first two rows (field human-readable names and field machine names), and one row for each object you will be ingesting. Delete any additional rows.
  • Note: the row order in this spreadsheet must be identical to the file order in files_to_upload.
• Move your revised bulk update spreadsheet into /metadata.

Run scripts

This code provides you with a set of command line utilities that can be used to perform various Workbench-related tasks. These are designed to be used in sequence.

Some of these commands take optional flags, which give the scripts additional information about how to process your data. Flags are parameters like --fields or --files that you can include in your commands, usually followed by some other piece of information such as a file name or variable. For more information and examples, see the sections below.

Create fillable spreadsheet (wb-fillable)

Creates a simplified version of a Workbench spreadsheet, with some data prepopulated. Data is pulled from media files, with the option to add additional data from an ArchivesSpace bulk update spreadsheet.

Information	Acceptable input	Required?	Flag	Example
Workbench upload type	book (an object with multiple pages) or single (a graphic, audio, video, or PDF object)	Yes		book
Fields to include	Name of a .csv file containing a list of fields to include. Omit the .csv extension. You can create your own custom list (see below) or use one of the preset options: example_minimum_book, example_minimum_single, cnairaudio, cnairbook, or cnairimage. If no list of fields is specified, all valid Workbench fields will be included.	Recommended	--fields	example_minimum_book
Bulk update spreadsheet	Name (with .xlsx extension) of an adapted ArchivesSpace bulk update spreadsheet file	Recommended	--AS	update.xlsx
Path to media folder	Location of the folder containing your media files. Only necessary if you haven't copied these files into /files_to_upload. Use forward slashes and if any directory names contain spaces, surround the path in quotes.	No	--files	"C:/Users/yshiroma/Desktop/Files to Upload"
Output blank sheet?	Use this flag if you want to create a blank Workbench sheet using only the specified fields and field descriptions. This flag does not take any input.	No	--blank

Example command with minimum required information:

wb-fillable book

Example command to use a custom set of fields, ArchivesSpace data, and file path:

wb-fillable book --fields fields_file --AS archivesspace_file.xlsx --files "C:/Users/username/Desktop/Folder Name"

Example command to create a blank spreadsheet from a particular set of fields, without drawing any information from media files or ArchivesSpace:

wb-fillable book --fields fields_file --blank

Check in /metadata that your output has been created successfully. It should be named output_wb-fillable (with 'output' replaced by the name of your ArchivesSpace bulk update sheet if you provided one).

Manually fill spreadsheet

Depending on your input, different Workbench fields will be prepopulated in output_wb-fillable. Your spreadsheet will also include a row of help text below the field names indicating what information needs to be entered and which values have been auto-generated.

Fill out the remaining fields according to standard Workbench guidelines, with a few exceptions:

• id, parent_id, field_weight, field_display_hints, and field_metadata_title are omitted in output_wb_fillable because they will be filled in automatically later by wb-to-wb
• For any field marked "Fills down," you can fill in a value only once and it will be auto-filled to any blank cell below it in that column
• field_language can be entered as an ISO639 language name or code
• field_linked_agent is broken out into field_linked_agent_NAME, field_linked_agent_RELATOR, and field_linked_agent_TYPE, making it possible to enter these pieces of information separately. If there are multiple linked agents, entries should be pipe-separated.

For example, consider the following field_linked_agent entry from a standard Workbench sheet:

relators:cre:person:Nussbaum, Martha, 1947-|relators:pbl:corporate_body:American Philosophical Society

The examples below show how this same data would be entered into output_wb-fillable.

Field	Description	Example
field_linked_agent_NAME	Name, in Library of Congress subject heading format	Nussbaum, Martha, 1947-|American Philosophical Society
field_linked_agent_RELATOR	Relator code, from list of Default Relationship Types	cre|pbl
field_linked_agent_TYPE	Type of linked agent (person, corporate_body, or family), or an abbreviation (p, c, or f). If left blank, all entires are assumed to be persons.	person|corporate_body

Validate spreadsheet (wb-validate)

Validates that certain fields have been entered correctly in output_wb-fillable.

Information	Acceptable input	Required?	Example
Workbench upload type	book (an object with multiple pages) or single (a graphic, audio, or video object)	Yes	book
Name of your simplified workbench sheet	Name (with .xlsx extension) of your simplified Workbench sheet	Yes	output_wb-filled.xlsx

Run wb-validate:

wb-validate book output_wb-filled.xlsx

This process will check the following:

• All field names are valid
• Titles are unique
• If any titles need a URL alias, you will be prompted to enter one (NOTE: script does not check whether a URL alias has been entered already, or whether that URL alias is valid)
• Relator codes and linked agent types are valid, and match the number of names listed in field_linked_agent_NAME
• Dates in field_edtf_date_created are valid
• Correct control terms are used in field_cnair_subject and field_language

Any errors will be printed to the console for you to fix manually. This script does NOT output any new files.

Convert simplified Workbench sheet to final Workbench sheet (wb-to-wb)

Creates a .csv file for use by Workbench from the filled .xlsx file.

Information	Acceptable input	Required?	Example
Workbench upload type	book (an object with multiple pages) or single (a graphic, audio, or video object)	Yes	book
Name of your validated, simplified Workbench sheet	File name (with .xlsx extension)	Yes	output_wb-filled.xlsx

Run wb-to-wb to generate the output Workbench .csv:

wb-to-wb book output_wb-filled.xlsx

This will output a file titled output_wb-to-wb.csv in the /metadata directory (with 'output' replaced by the name of your original input file). Check this output by opening it in Google Sheets, Excel, or your code editor. If everything looks good, you're ready to copy your .csv and media files over to the Digital Library server, following the standard ingest process.

Note: This process assumes that you will be adding objects to existing nodes within the Digital Library. If you are creating a new collection instead, you will need to manually enter it then adjust the values in id and parent_id. See the Digital Library metadata guidelines for more information.

Create ArchivesSpace digital objects (wb-create-dos)

After your media files have been ingested, use your Workbench output CSV to generate the metadata needed to create digital objects in ArchivesSpace.

Information	Acceptable input	Required?	Example
Name of your Workbench output CSV	File name (with .csv extension)	Yes	2026-02-13_output_YDS.csv

Run the following command:

wb-create-dos workbench_output.csv

This will output a file titled output_wb-create-dos.csv in the /metadata directory (with 'output' replaced by the name of your original input file). You can then copy/paste information from this CSV into an ArchivesSpace bulk update spreadsheet to create digital object links. For full guidelines, see here.

Note: ArchivesSpace bulk update sheets expire after one week. The bulk update process will also fail if any associated records have been updated via the staff interface since the bulk update sheet was downloaded. If this happens, you will need to download a new version of the ArchivesSpace spreadsheet, or create the Digital Objects manually in the ArchivesSpace staff user interface.

User customization

The /fields directory contains .csv files with lists of Workbench fields required for differnt upload types (e.g. book or single) and different media types (e.g. audio or image). These are selected by the --fields in workbench-fillable and workbench-blank.

To create your own customized list of fields, follow these instructions:

• Duplicate and rename "example_minimum.book.csv" or "example_minimum_single.csv". Keep the .csv extension. These files contain the minimum fields required when running wb-fillable.
• Add any other fields you need and rearrange to your liking.

Note: when auto-filling data from an ArchivesSpace bulk update spreadsheet, only fields included in your list can be auto-filled. See the function '_AS_metadata_to_WB_fields' in wb-fillable for which fields are attempted.

Maintenance

Any new Workbench fields should be added to utilities/default_specs.py:

• Add the field name, and optional description, as a tuple to WB_FIELDS_ORDERED_WITH_DESCRIPTION. Without being here, the presence of these fields will cause an error.
• If these fields are required, add them to the appropriate previous WB_FIELDS_ tuples

There are a few controlled vocabularies within /vocabularies/ that require occasional updates, in decreasing order of frequency:

• agents_in_AS.csv contains a row for every single ArchivesSpace Archival Object that uses an Agent. This is formatted as: name, archival_object_title, archival_object_ref_id. This can be exported using a custom report in ArchivesSpace. Update frequency: approximately monthly, to reflect new/updated finding aid data.
• cnair_subject.csv is a list of CNAIR subjects (subject terms only). The main vocabulary is at Airtable and CNAIR staff can export a .csv. Individual changes could also be hand-edited. Update frequency: whenever CNAIR changes its subjects.
• iso639.csv contains 3-letter language codes and language names from the ISO639 standard. Update frequency: infrequent, check annually if any changes were made. Previously this file was generated using utils/ISO639json_to_CSV.py (see instructions within that file), though this did not account for the newer change to prefer ISO639-2b codes where different.
• relator.csv contains relator names and codes from the Library of Congress's controlled vocabulary. Update frequency: infrequent (if ever), given the unlikelihood of significant changes. LOC provides a .tsv file here that can be adapted.

ArchivesSpace's Bulk Update Spreadsheet is unlikely to change in fundamental structure, but field names may change. Check for other data that could be mapped to Workbench fields.

Testing

Testing/sample data is currently lacking. This should include sample media for various types, and sample spreadsheets.

Omissions/assumptions/known issues

• There is currently no way to validate field entry against Islandora controlled vocabularies themselves unless they are explicitly downloaded into /vocabularies/ and code added to validate them (in wb-validate calling a function in utils/validate.py)
• Agents from ArchivesSpace must currently come from a custom report where the maximum (50k rows, we need something close to 80k) is overridden using the browser inspect tool. An API call could be an improvement. There is currently a ticket with ArchivesSpace to include agents (and all subjects and all other fields) in the spreadsheet.

Contributing

This library is under active development and welcomes contributions. Please work from the existing issues before submitting a pull request.

Installation for development

Clone the repo for local development:

git clone git@github.com:AmericanPhilosophicalSociety/aspace-wb-scripts.git
cd aspace-wb-scripts

Create a python virtual environment and install the package for local use:

On Windows:

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\activate

On Linux/WSL:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Install the version for local development:

pip install -e .

Create a new git branch for your work, replacing new-feature with a descriptive branch name:

git branch new-feature
git checkout new-feature