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Dear colleagues,

 

One year ago today, the Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) of Dumbarton Oaks launched our online database, AtoM@DO (atom.doaks.org). We are pleased to announce that we have upgraded to a new version (2.1) of the AtoM (Access to Memory) software, which features a redesigned interface and many enhancements for searching and browsing.

 

In response to feedback from our users, we sponsored development of new functionality within the Places taxonomy through AtoM lead developer Artefactual Systems. You can now browse a hierarchical list of geographic terms with a tree-view that allows you to navigate from broader terms to narrower terms. You can also browse an alphabetical list of places, or search within the taxonomy with a dedicated search box. A persistent Browse menu in the header gives you instant access to all of AtoM@DO’s taxonomies, whether Names, Places, or Subjects. These same access points are now prominently displayed at the top of all archival records, thereby facilitating discovery of related items.

AtoM@DO’s search engine has been enhanced with the implementation of Elasticsearch. Now, when you start a keyword search in the Search box located in the header, suggested matches will appear in real time, faceted by archival description, Names, Places, or Subjects. The search engine is responsive, so the more characters you type, more relevant results will appear dynamically. Additionally, Place terms assigned to archival descriptions will inherit their parent terms, so that searches for “Turkey” will automatically return results for “Istanbul.” AtoM@DO now includes more robust faceting of search results, so that you can narrow large sets quickly to target the most relevant results. Use the facet filters on the left-hand side of the search results page to limit your results by level of description, department, or creator, or by access points (Names, Places, and Subjects).

 

We hope that you will explore the new AtoM@DO, which contains many more enhancements that we hope will improve our users’ ability to locate archival materials at Dumbarton Oaks. We will continue to add content to AtoM@DO as we process and describe our collections. In the meantime, you can also discover our collections (processed and unprocessed) through a variety of channels, whether HOLLIS, WorldCat, or ArchiveGrid.

 

For more information on how to use the new features, please see the AtoM@DO FAQ page prepared by ICFA staff. Feel free contact us with any questions or feedback at [log in to unmask]. We would especially like to thank our colleague, Prathmesh Mengane, Database and CMS Developer, whose dogged assistance made this upgrade possible.

 

Sincerely,

Shalimar