Linking Between Systems
Provides an overview of the use of identifiers in the Metadata Management System (MMS) to support connections to and from Digital Collections (DC) from other patron-facing systems of the Library
If a link to or from Digital Collections is absent or broken, please let us know via our Contact Form so we can investigate.
Table of contents
Research Catalog
Digital Collections → Research Catalog
- When a bnumber is present in MMS for an collection, container, or item, a link to the Research Catalog will automatically appear on that entity’s page on DC
- From a collection or container view, the linked bnumber can be found on the About tab in the Identifiers section as NYPL catalog ID (B-number)
- From an item view, a link can be found in two places:
- In the right column titled View This Item Elsewhere in a box titled NYPL Catalog and View this item in the NYPL Catalog
- Towards the end of the descriptive metadata in the Identifiers section as NYPL catalog ID (B-number)
- If more than one bnumber is present on an MMS record, only one link will be linked from the View This Item Elsewhere column but every bnumber and its corresponding link will appear in the Identifiers section
Research Catalog → Digital Collections
- When a bnumber is added in MMS to a collection, container, or item that has met the criteria to appear in DC, a link to DC will be added to the corresponding catalog record
- In the Research Catalog, the link can be found under the Available Online heading or the Connect to: section as NYPL Digital Collections
- In the Legacy Catalog, the link can be found under the Connect to: heading as NYPL Digital Collections
- Links to DC are added to the bibliographic record in Sierra
- Links to DC should use the standardized MARC 856 field:
856 41 |uURL|zNYPL Digital Collections
- Links to DC should use the standardized MARC 856 field:
- URLs are formatted according to our URL Structure documentation
- Links to DC are periodically batch added to Sierra by the Library’s Integrated Library Systems Team (ILS Team) using data supplied by the Metadata Services Unit (MSU)
- This workflow is still being refined, but our current goal is to supply refreshed data to the Library’s ILS Team on a regular basis so they can perform batch updates
- Past batches of supplied links can be found in the Data Supplied to ILS Team 🔒 folder in Google Drive
- Library staff with relevant permissions can access related scripts in our metadata-tools 🔒 repo
Archives Portal
Digital Collections → Archives Portal
Via MSS Unit ID
- When an MSS Unit ID is present on an MMS collection, container, or item, the MSS Unit ID numeric string will automatically appear on that entity’s page on DC
- From a collection or container view, the collection’s MSS Unit ID numeric string can be found on the About tab in the Identifiers section as MSS Unit ID
- From an item view, the MSS Unit ID numeric string can be found towards the end of the descriptive metadata in the Identifiers section as MSS Unit ID
- The MSS Unit ID identifiers on DC do not link to the Archives Portal
- To navigate to the Archives Portal collection that corresponds to content in Digital Collections, append the MSS Unit ID numeric string to https://archives.nypl.org/
- URL structure
- https://archives.nypl.org/MSS Unit ID
- URL example
- https://archives.nypl.org/21423
- Resolved URL structure
- https://archives.nypl.org/divcode/MSS Unit ID
- Resolved URL example
- https://archives.nypl.org/the/21423
Via Archives EAD ID & Archives Components ID
- When an Archives EAD ID is present on an MMS item, the Archives EAD ID link will automatically appear on that item’s page on DC
- From an item view, the Archives EAD ID link can be found towards the end of the descriptive metadata in the Identifiers section as Archives EAD ID
- Clicking the link will take you to the item’s finding aid component in the Archives Portal and will resolve to a URL that uses the Archives Components ID
- URL structure
- http://archives.nypl.org/components/Archives EAD ID
- URL example
- http://archives.nypl.org/components/3329690
- Resolved URL structure
- https://archives.nypl.org/divcode/MSS Unit ID#cArchives components id
- Resolved URL example
- https://archives.nypl.org/cps/24637#c1638681
Archives Portal → Digital Collections
- Digitized assets for records that are available globally in Digital Collections are displayed in the Archives Portal
- For EAD-encoded finding aids, an icon and clickable link will be present to the left of the associated finding aid component (example)
- This connection is made via the Archives EAD ID
- The icon displayed is determined by the type of digitized asset
- For images, the icon will be a film strip (🎞️)
- For sound recordings, the icon will be music notes (🎶)
- For moving images, the icon will be a film camera (📽️)
- For PDF finding aids, thumbnails will display on the Overview tab of the collection (example)
- This connection is made via the MSS Unit ID
- For EAD-encoded finding aids, an icon and clickable link will be present to the left of the associated finding aid component (example)
- Right clicking and opening any icon or thumbnail in a new tab will take the user directly to the corresponding record on Digital Collections