Person Entities

Owned by Ashley Sneesby, created
Aug 21, 2021
9 min read

This documentation describes the process for adding, editing, and managing Person Entities in Islandora for the Marmot Digital Archive.

Top of page

Table of Contents

Adding a new Person Entity

Search in Islandora

The first step for adding any entity in Islandora is to search to see if the entity already exists to make sure you do not create a duplicate.  Entities are shared across all libraries within Marmot. 

Islandora is not always the best search engine, so you can use the Facets sidebar to limit your search by Islandora Person Content Model.   This will limit your results to anything that is an person entity. 

 

 

If you do not find your person entity, go to the Add A Person.

Top of page

Add a Person

Go to Entity Shortcuts on the main page, and click Add A Person.

The Display Name is what will show at the top of the page as a title. The name does not have to be in a specific format, but you would want it to read like someone’s name would be recognized.  We would want first name and last name (i.e. George Washington). If the person is known with their middle initial, or a nickname that could also be included. If people really do not use a person’s middle name, you do not have to include it.  If everyone uses their nickname, you definitely want to include it (see the examples under Display name).   

With the Biographical Information you can put as much or as little as you want in this field. The information should match the information in the archives.  For example, if you were creating a person entity for the  2014 Cattlemen’s Days, you would want to put that the person was a rodeo queen or princess for the 2014 Cattlemen’s Day.  This maps directly into Pika under the Description field.

The Family Name is the person’s current last name.  

The Given Name is the person’s first name. 

The Middle Name(s) is optional.  

The Maiden Name(s) allows you to enter more than one maiden name, if the person was married more than once.  Click on green plus sign button to add another maiden name.  The description explains that the Family Name is also for previous marriage(s).  

The Alternate Name(s) is for any nicknames or aliases.  Click on the green plus sign button to add more names.  If a name does not fit into any of the other fields, it can be included in the Alternate Name(s).

The Date of Birth and Date of Death can be added fully or partially.

Family Member allows you to document family relationships like children, parents and siblings. The Relationship is a drop down menu to pick one of the three relationships (child, parent or sibling).

The Person PID is needed for a person entity associated with the relationship.

Finding the Person PID

You can search for the Person, or use the Go To People under Entity Shortcuts. Open the file for that person.

 

Click on the Manage link under their name first.  Next, click on Datastream.  The PID is listed after the person’s name.

Top of page

Add a Person (continued)

Name is used for the family member related to the person entity.  Use the add additional information for the person entity  from the relationship.  Click Add to enter the information, and add a new tab. 

Has Address is for addresses the person is known to have lived at. For each address, you can add either a Place Entity or a General Place.

Place Entity is for any place that would have a Wikipedia entry. Place Entity needs something attached to it like a famous person or event.  If the place is not an entity, it would be a General Place (non-entity).   Clicking on either one will show all the boxes you need to fill out.

The Address Start Date & Address End Date for the timeframe the person was known to live at the address.  Use the Add button to add another date range.

Demographic Information is only used when the person has self-identified their race, ethnicity, gender expression or gender identity.  You can choose terms for the Race and Ethnicity, as well as Gender Expression and Gender Identity from the links that are highlighted under the fields. Copy and paste the URLs under the fields in a new browser window or tab.

Click on Military Service to expand the boxes.  This is used for a military record.

There is a drop down arrow to pick the Military Branch.

There is a Service Start and End Date.

The Highest Rank can be added for any branch of service.

There is a drop down arrow to pick the Wars/Conflicts where the person served.  If you need a war or conflict added to the list, contact Marmot.

There is a drop down for Prisoner of War.  The default is No.

Places Served is anywhere you can see in the record that they served.  There are two Add buttons.  The 1st Add button will allow you to add more places. The 2nd Add button is to add a new military record.

Clicking the 2nd Add button to add a new military record will put a new tab under Military Record.  This will allow you to add the new record.

External Link is to link the person to other sources outside of Islandora, including Pika. Type is a way to link to specific websites supported in Pika.

Person Entities have more limited External Link options than other entities. You can use the following External Link Types for Person Entities.

  • findAGrave

  • marmotGeneaology

  • relatedPika

  • wikipedia

The relatedPika link is one of the choices from the XML form in the browser link under the Type field. You can type in the word relatedPika into the Type field. You can add the link to the grouped record from Pika into Link.

The Grouped Work link is found in the Staff View in Pika. Click on Go to Grouped Work. You would copy and paste this link into the Link field. Link Text is the text that will appear in Pika if the Type field is not completed.

If using a Grouped Work URL for an external link, there should be nothing following the grouped work ID in the URL you're using e.g. 'home' or

'Home?searchId=58227433&recordIndex=1&page=1&s' etc.

Do not link to individual bib records -- you must use a grouped work in Pika, as the grouped work ID is the datapoint Pika expects from Islandora records.

Notes is for anything that does not fit in any of the other fields.  This is a way to include information from a source that might contradict other sources for biographical information.  This is something you would not want to be as prominent as the biographical information.  Make sure to include sources whenever possible. This is an optional field.  

Leave both of the Pika Options as YES. These fields will always be “yes” for a person. This will include the person as an entity in Pika.  

Click Next.

If you want to add a Thumbnail image of the person at the time of creation, you would click Choose File.  Click Upload.  The most important step is to click Ingest. The photo will not be loaded to the page, until the Ingest button is clicked.  You can also click Ingest to complete the process, and add a thumbnail picture later.

Top of page

Adding a Thumbnail Image

The best practice for adding a thumbnail for people that are being added to the archives is to find a picture of them in the archives from a different location.  Anyone can edit the entities.  If someone saved a new thumbnail to the person entity, it would remove any previous images.  This is why it is best to get the image from a different location.  If you are adding Person entities for library archive staff, it is okay to use an image from your computer rather than from a collection.

Click on Manage under the person’s name.

Click on Datastreams.

Then click on the Add a datastream link.

For Datastream ID enter TN, for Datastream Label enter Thumbnail, and then browse to the image file you want to add, click Upload, and then click Add Datastream.

Top of page

Managing and Editing Person Entities

To edit the person entity, click Manage. 

Next, click on Datastreams.

These are all the records associated with the person.  The RELS-EXT indicates what collection the entity belongs to, in this case the entity is part of the person collection.  MODS is the created record for the entity. DC stands for Dublin Core; it is a common metadata standard that is automatically created from the MODS.  POLICY is for who is allowed to edit the entity record. TN is for the thumbnail image of the entity (this will only show once an image is added). Clicking TN will show you the image. The only one you can edit is MODS.

Click edit.

This will bring up the Edit datastream page, so you can edit anything about the person.

Click Update to save the changes.

Top of page