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Physical Locations

Track where your physical items are stored. Assign locations to individual items, whole accessions, or entire fonds. Navigate to Locations in the sidebar (Professional plans and above).

Why track locations?​

Physical storage locations let you:

  • Find material quickly — filter accessions or items by building, room, or shelf reference
  • Plan retrieval — generate pick lists for researchers requesting multiple items
  • Monitor storage capacity — see which storage areas are reaching capacity
  • Export location data — locations appear in EAD3, CSV, and BagIt exports

Creating a location​

  1. Navigate to Locations in the sidebar.
  2. Click Add Location.
  3. Fill in:
    • Building (required) — e.g. "Main Archive Building", "Off-site Storage Facility A"
    • Reference / Shelfmark — your internal location code (e.g. "A-42-3", "Box 127")
    • Notes — any additional context
  4. Optionally expand Add more detail to specify:
    • Floor, Room, Area (free text)
    • Barcode (for barcode-scanning workflows)
    • Structured coordinates (Coord 1 / Coord 2 / Coord 3) — for archives using hierarchical location schemes
  5. Click Save.

The location appears in the list immediately and is now assignable to accessions, items, and fonds.

Assigning locations​

To an accession​

  1. Open the accession detail page.
  2. Find the Location field in the metadata panel.
  3. Select a location from the dropdown.

The location assignment applies to the accession as a logical unit. You can also assign different locations to individual items within the accession if needed.

To an item​

  1. Open the item detail page (expand the row in an accession's Items tab).
  2. Find the Location field.
  3. Select a location.

Item-level locations override the accession-level location for that specific file.

To a fond, series, or sub-series​

  1. Open the fond detail page.
  2. Switch to the Manage view.
  3. Find the Location field in the fonds-level metadata editor.
  4. Select a location.

This records where the physical materials represented by the fond are stored. Useful for tracking entire collections or archival groups.

Bulk assignment​

From the Accessions list:

  1. Select multiple accessions (card view Select mode or table view checkboxes).
  2. Click Assign location in the action bar.
  3. Choose a location from the list (with filter to narrow by building or reference).
  4. Click Assign.

All selected accessions receive the same location assignment.

Default location​

Set a default location so newly created accessions inherit it automatically:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Organisation (admins only).
  2. Find Default storage location.
  3. Select a location.

New accessions will be pre-assigned to this location. Useful for single-site archives where most material lands in the same building.

Editing and deleting locations​

From the Locations page:

  • Click a location to edit its details.
  • Click Delete to remove it. You can only delete locations that aren't currently assigned to any accessions, items, or fonds.

Location data in exports​

Locations appear in:

  • EAD3 XML — as <physloc> elements
  • CSV exports — dedicated location column showing the full building + reference
  • BagIt — in the item-level metadata JSON
  • PDF reports — in the item details table

Simplified workflow​

If your archive doesn't use structured location codes, the simplified workflow is:

  1. Create locations with just Building and Reference filled in (skip Floor, Room, Barcode, Coordinates).
  2. Use the Reference / Shelfmark field for your actual storage identifiers — "Box 42", "Shelf A-3", "Cabinet 7".
  3. Assign locations to accessions in bulk after processing.

The platform doesn't enforce any particular location scheme — use what works for your organisation.

See also​