Better thumbnail icons for authorities

[DominicBM]

Currently, the default thumbnail icon for authorities is the "Not Available Online" one, which does not make much sense (and discourages users from clicking, potentially). Can we use an icon that better represents authority records?

[mereastew]

I think we saw icons earlier in the design phase. Engage the Authorities team to determine icons?

[WaxCylinderRevival]

Perhaps we could sync with the icons used in the Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) project, as the cooperative will be in earnest in 2015: http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/snac/search [Please note the icons for Person (in green), Family (in orange), and Organization (in purple) above the search toolbar.]

I could check with the California Digital Library development team to see if they anticipate any changes to their icon set/design, as well as any other questions you might have.

[DominicBM]

Yeah, I like that style. Hopefully one day we could also pull thumbnail images form SNAC.

[mereastew]

Those icons look more like the glyphicons we want implemented throughout the site. Do our catalog authorities align to those three icons by type? Or do we need more than 3?

[DominicBM]

We'd just use person and organization, I think. Our other three types of authorities (subjects, geographic references, records type) are excluded from search results, and I can't think of where else they'd need an icon.

[WaxCylinderRevival]

@Dominic-MP: Yes, indeed, as well as the content and Wikipedia links. You might be interested in looking at the Wikipedia icon they've elected to use in the prototype (orange circle, white W): http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/snac/search?facet-entityType=person;f00-Wikipedia=Wikipedia

@mereastew The archival standard for entities is "Corporate Bodies" (=Organizations), "Persons" (=Individual Persons), and "Families" (=Discrete Family Units). Currently, DAS supports Organizations and Personal Names so those two would be the higher priorities for our catalog.

In MARC, family names are entered as variants of personal names (i.e., creators/contributors in the 100/700 fields and subject in the 500 field). NARA would use family names as entities much less often, but there is a possibility of use, especially in the donated collections of Presidential Libraries or as subjects within our records (possible examples: the Kennedy family or the Roosevelts).

@Dominic-MP, ah, you just addressed my question! I wondered about our topical and geographic authorities. In the long game, I'd likely envision linked data-rich landing pages for topics and places. But I would probably consider this to be a very long-term consideration/opportunity, lower in priority than our organizations and individuals and the other resources you're implementing.

[WaxCylinderRevival]

Thanks so much!

[DominicBM]

So, I think we could use icons from the Glyphicons set that will be used elsewhere for this.

For persons, I'd recommend "user" or "group":

or

And for organizations, we could go with "bank", "building", or something similar.

or

Check out http://glyphicons.com/ to browse the full set.

[WaxCylinderRevival]

For persons, let's use the generic "user"/"glyphicons-user" (We'll save "group" for families, which is a class that we need to pull out from persons at a later stage.)

For organizations, let's use the second ("bank"/"glyphicons-bank"), which is closest to the SNAC icons.

For future development, let's keep these options in our pocket for geographic headings:

• globe: "glyphicons-globe-af"
• marker on a map: "glyphicons-map"

[DominicBM]

I think we want to avoid globe images, since that is similar to the existing web page ("World Wide Web") icon. But the map is a good idea.

[mereastew]

We need to update the current huge blue globe (which is not working well) to the glyphicons version for web pages. I just checked glypicons for another icon that would work for webpage icon, but I don't see any. Does anyone see anything else that would work?

Maybe we should have one list with all the icons we want to see replaced?

[DominicBM]

@mereastew Check out the list I made on issue 25. For web pages, I suggested the "global" one (which gets a little away from the actual world map icon, and is a little more symbol-like).

This was the list I transmitted to Larry, but they can presumably all be changed once we are commenting on ST's design updates, so it was more just so that ST wasn't blindly choosing their own ideas for the icons.

[WaxCylinderRevival]

Could we possibly alter the glyph or are we bound to the set as is due to the licensing?

I ask because it might be helpful to either place the globe on a page (http://iconizer.net/files/Human_o2/orig/gnome-mime-application-xhtml+xml.png) or add some sort of visual indicator that this link takes you to a web resource (e.g. http://search.trln.org/images/icon-eBook.gif or http://www.infyways.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Make-Published-Joomla-Articles-Non-Searchable.jpg). I find the globe a little imprecise. Just a thought.

[WaxCylinderRevival]

Actually, I'd even be fine with using the glyphicons-file-import for web page, unless we're already using it for file import or export.

[jmischke]

We own them (once the payment goes through) so think we can do whatever to them.

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Wax Cylinder Revival < notifications@github.com> wrote:

Could we possibly alter the glyph or are we bound to the set as is due to the licensing?

I ask because it might be helpful to either place the globe on a page ( http://iconizer.net/files/Human_o2/orig/gnome-mime-application-xhtml+xml.png) or add some sort of visual indicator that this link takes you to a web resource (e.g. http://search.trln.org/images/icon-eBook.gif or http://www.infyways.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Make-Published-Joomla-Articles-Non-Searchable.jpg). I find the globe a little imprecise. Just a thought.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/usnationalarchives/OPAProd/issues/71#issuecomment-87695532 .

[mereastew]

@jmischke - This haven't been purchased yet? What's the ETA?

@jmischke - Can you check and get us an answer on whether we can modify them. Thanks!

[jmischke]

Kathleen has been trying to purchase them for weeks, but there has been an issue as they only take PayPal. Last I had heard she had used a PayPal account,. but then it didn't work so they needed to mail funding? Then last week, both David and Kathleen were out so it did not move. Earlier this morning I asked David to look and let me know where we stand and he told me he would get us an update.

Apparently whoever owns the site has not been responsive to email so Katleen has had issues with the whole process. I'll go ahead and ask if we can modify and hope for an answer, but as I read the license, we own them and can do with them as we please.

Jim

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 10:51 AM, Meredith Stewart <notifications@github.com

wrote:

@jmischke https://github.com/jmischke - This haven't been purchased yet? What's the ETA?

@jmischke https://github.com/jmischke - Can you check and get us an answer on whether we can modify them. Thanks!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/usnationalarchives/OPAProd/issues/71#issuecomment-87709329 .