Container Instance

To link a particular box or physical location to an archival object in ArchivesSpace, you will need to create a container instance. Here are the instructions on how to do this:

1. Scroll down to the Instance section and click "add container instance."
2. For type, select "mixed materials" if you are describing normal archival material. If you are describing EXCLUSIVELY digital, book, or AV materials, you can select one of the other categories.
3. For top container, select the drop down menu and choose "create." This will make a new box. Your screen should look like this:
4. This will open a new window that will look like this:
5. Container profile describes the size of the box. If you know the name of the box you can select it, or you can search boxes by their measurements. If you type in the measurements and nothing comes up that matches, tell an archivist and we will create a new box for you.
6. Container type is generally "box," but we occasionally use "roll" and "folder" (for oversize rolled material and flat file folders, e.g. for posters) or "reel" (for film reels).
7. Indicator is the box number. Numbering restarts for every container type. I.e. you can have box 1-4, reel 1-3, and flat file folder 1.
8. If you know it, you can also add a barcode and location now.
9. You can now create and link to the top container.
10. You can always edit the container once it is created by clicking on the blue top container and then clicking view.
11. The next time you need to add something to the box you created, you can just type it into the top container field, rather than selecting create. I.e. if you keep selecting create to add several things to box 1, you will create a bunch of box 1s, so instead you should search for the box 1 you already made so that the computer knows it is all in the same box 1.

IF THE FILE IS IN MULTIPLE BOXES: you can add more container instances.