User Manual: CSV Importer: Formatting Records and Relationships

The CSV Importer can be used to create entirely new Procedural and Authority Term Records, or to update existing Procedural and Authority Term Records. The tool can also be used to create Relationships between Records, and to create Hierarchical Relationships among Authority Term and Object Cataloging Records.

Procedural records include Object Cataloging, Acquisition, Loans, etc.

Authority Term records include Persons, Organizations, Concepts, Storage Location, etc.

To create new Procedural (e.g. Objects, Loans, Acquisitions) records, follow the data formatting guidelines and then move to the instructions for using the CSV Importer webapp.

To update existing Procedural or Authority records, your spreadsheet only needs to contain the columns you plan to update. Fields that aren’t in your spreadsheet won’t be affected by the import. 

  • Tip: If you have non-unique Authority Term Names, e.g. two John Smiths, the CSV Importer will match with the first term that it finds. Notes in the processing report will indicate that the term has more than one match, and provide the URI of the term the tool plans to use.

  • Critical tip: If the data you’d like to update includes multi-valued fields, all existing values will be replaced by the data you import. To make sure you don’t delete existing values by mistake, we suggest first exporting the records you’d like to update via the Search Results Export feature, and then editing that CSV vs. creating one from scratch.

    • For example, if your existing record has colors Red and Blue, and in your spreadsheet you enter the value Green into the cell, after updating, your Color field will only include Green. If you want to keep Red and Blue and add Green, your Color cell needs to read: Red|Blue|Green.

  • Critical Tip: We strongly recommend adding new terms to an authority before importing other records that use the term. The CSV Importer will generate a report that alerts you to the presence of any terms that don’t already exist, which you can then use to create an import CSV for those terms. If you import without creating the terms first, “refnames” for the new terms will be created when Procedural data is imported, but they will be stub records that don’t really exist until the Authority Term record is created, and may lead to mismatched data if the terms that are created after the fact have been changed at all from the initial import.

  • To create relationships between procedures, use the “Non-Hierarchical Relationship” template in GitHub

    • Tip: Both sides of a relationship, i.e. both procedures, need to exist before you can add the relationship.

  • Your spreadsheet needs to include the record type for both sides of the relationships and the ID number for both records, example below.

    • Tip: Proper formatting for all Record type names is in the GitHub template.

item1_type

item1_id

item2_type

item2_id

acquisitions

2001.001

collectionobjects

2001.001.0001

acquisitions

2001.001

collectionobjects

2001.001.0002

  • To create hierarchical relationships between Authority Terms, use the “Authority Hierarchy Relationship” template in GitHub. 

    • Tip: Both sides of a relationship, i.e. both Authority Terms, need to exist before you can add the relationship.

  • Your spreadsheet needs to include the Authority type and sub-type (e.g. for Concept, if the terms are in the Activity sub-Authority) for both sides of the relationships and the Display Name for both records, example below.

    • Tip: Proper formatting for all Authority type names is in the GitHub template.

term_type

term_subtype

narrower_term

broader_term

conceptauthorities

activity

CSV Test Act 001a

CSV Test Act 001

conceptauthorities

activity

CSV Test Act 001b

CSV Test Act 001