As explained at https://collectionspace.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COL/pages/1069645829, leaving a cell in your CSV blank when updating records will not result in the deletion of data from that field in an exisiting CollectionSpace record.

This is great for preventing accidental destruction of our data in routine work.

Question:

However, what if we batch-add notes to a field in 500 records, and then decide we wish we’d put the note in a different place?

How do we clear the first note field out so there is not duplicate data in our record when we add the new note field?

Answer: Deploy the bomb option (💣)

Copy/paste the bomb emoji into any cell of your CSV to completely clear that field in your CollectionSpace record on update.

We are choosing to use the bomb for this because

• it will be difficult to accidentally insert in your data

• it is easy to notice it in your data

• it should evoke a lot of caution because it is potentially quite destructive!

• (it amused us)

Tool-specific notes

Current CollectionSpace Converter Tool

Any field containing a 💣 will be cleared in that record.

If there is any chance your actual real data legitimately includes 💣s and you are round-tripping data via the ad-hoc reporting → edit CSV → import CSV workflow, you will lose data.

This seems highly unlikely, but worth mentioning.

New CSV Import Tool in development

Will only clear field in a record if the only thing in the CSV cell is a 💣.

This will allow round-tripping of notes such as “The artist known as 🧶💣 wraps urban objects and structures in knitted nets” without data loss.