Access to Memory (AtoM)

In the updated 2.3 accessions template, there is still a separate creators column - attaching here for reference. In the archival description csv templates, we managed to do away with this awkwardness - all events and actors, creation or otherwise, can be added to the same columns: eventActors, eventActorHistories, eventStartDates eventDates, eventTypes, eventEndDates, etc.

In the 2.3 accessions template it's a bit confusing:

• creators must have the creator names (e.g. creator1|creator2)
• eventActors must have NULL values (e.g. NULL|NULL)

Trying to add a 3rd actor, who is an accumulator, gets a bit weird. If you add a 3rd, piped, NULL value in the creators column this gets imported as a literal - you'll end up with a creator named NULL. So you would have to pipe all the other values, but NOT the creators column. Hardly intuitive.

Ideal workflow

• creators column is removed - values are added to eventActors instead

I tried importing one like this, and my creators were not imported. Right now, AtoM is only looking for creators in the creators column. Other event types are less of a priority, since their creators will not display (as AtoM add other event actors as name access points, and there are no name access points on accession records - and they do not appear magically when an archival description is generated from an accession). Still, for clarity and consistency, I think we should use the same columns as we are now using the information_objects csv templates - and you should not need another column with NULL values for imports.