The catalogue

The catalogue is a project's archival tree. It records the institutions that hold manuscripts, the levels of arrangement within them (collections, fonds, series, files), and the manuscripts themselves, each with its shelfmark and its folios. The levels follow the archival standard ISAD(G), so a catalogue entry records where a manuscript sits in its archive.

The catalogue is separate from the library list. A catalogued manuscript does not need a library item, and a library item of type manuscript does not need a catalogue entry. You link the two when you want to read, cite or analyse the manuscript as an item, as described under A manuscript's page. How resources, items and copies relate more generally is explained in Resources, copies and surrogates.

Opening the catalogueCopy Anchor Link

In the Library, choose the Catalogue tab above the list. The catalogue opens at /p/<project>/library?perspective=archival, with the tree on one side of the pane and the level or manuscript you have selected on the other. An empty catalogue says so.

The pane's header offers Add by reference…, which builds a path from a shelfmark, New repository…, which adds a top-level entry by hand, Authorities…, which opens the project's authorities, and, in Pangur for Mac only, Import photographs… for bringing photographs in from Photos. The Search the catalogue field filters the tree by title and reference code.

Levels of descriptionCopy Anchor Link

Each entry in the tree above the manuscripts is a level. Pangur offers these, from broadest to narrowest:

Pangur enforces this order. An entry may have the same level as its parent or a narrower one, but not a broader one, and a repository can only stand at the top of the tree. A move or an edit that would break the order is refused, as is a move of an entry into its own branch.

The repository is the root of the tree and the institution a shelfmark belongs to. Pangur combines the repository's reference code (or its title, if it has no code) with a manuscript's shelfmark to identify the manuscript. This combination is also how photographs taken before the manuscript was catalogued find their way home: once you catalogue the manuscript under the right repository and shelfmark, the photographs attach to it.

Adding entries by handCopy Anchor Link

Each entry in the tree has a row menu (the button beside it, or right-click). New level inside… asks for a Title (for example "Airlie muniments"), a Level of description and an optional Reference code (for example "GD16"). New manuscript… asks for a Reference code (for example "GD16/1/2") and an optional Title. As the dialog points out, most manuscripts have no title beyond their shelfmark, but a manuscript needs at least one of the two. The menu also offers Add by reference…, described next, and Rename and Delete….

New repository… in the header starts a new branch with its first, top-level entry.

A manuscript can sit at any level, not only under a file.

Adding by referenceCopy Anchor Link

Add by reference… turns a shelfmark, written as you would write it in a footnote, into the catalogue entries it implies. Opened from the header it builds a whole path from the top, and opened from an entry it builds a path inside that entry.

1. Type the reference, for example NRS SP13/70-73.
2. Pangur shows what it would do, marking each step (new) or (already there). Nothing is written at this point.
3. Choose Add. Pangur reports how many manuscripts and descriptions it added.

For NRS SP13/70-73, Pangur creates a repository "NRS", a level "SP13" inside it, and four manuscripts, SP13/70 to SP13/73. Adding the same reference a second time reuses what exists and creates nothing new, and if every part is already catalogued the dialog says so and Add is unavailable.

Pangur reads a reference in one of two ways. Some institutions cite by forms that cannot be split mechanically, such as "Add MS 23108" or "Cotton MS Nero D IV", so Pangur recognises the forms used by the British Library (Add MS, Cotton, Egerton, Sloane, Harley, Royal, Arundel, Lansdowne, Burney, Stowe, King's, Yates Thompson, Ashley, Or and MS Mus.), the Bodleian (Bodl., Ashmole, Digby, Laud, Rawl., Tanner and Douce), the National Library of Scotland (Adv.MS. and MS), Cambridge University Library, Trinity College Dublin and Edinburgh University Library. For any other reference, slashes and spaces separate the levels, and in the last part commas list separate items and hyphens give ranges, so NRS SP13/13, 15-17, 20 gives five manuscripts.

A range may cover at most 200 items. This guards against a typing slip creating thousands of entries.

A manuscript's pageCopy Anchor Link

Choosing a manuscript in the tree shows its page: the shelfmark as a heading, any title, its linked records, its copies and its description. If the manuscript has a library item, an In your library pill appears.

The page offers four actions. Transcribe opens the transcription desk; it is unavailable while photographs are still being prepared, and if the manuscript has no library item yet Pangur creates one first. Analyse appears when the manuscript has a library item and opens that item's analysis. Open in the library opens the linked library item. If there is none, the button reads Add a reference instead and creates a library item of type manuscript with the archive and shelfmark filled in; Pangur only creates this item when you ask for it. Import & arrange photographs… opens the ingestion desk described below.

The page also reports how many of the manuscript's photographs are ready, for example "38 of 40 photographs ready."

A level's page shows its level of description, its reference code, how many levels and manuscripts it contains, and how many of those manuscripts have library items and can therefore be added to a corpus.

Every level and manuscript page ends with a Description, which is covered in Descriptions, authorities and linked records.

Bringing a manuscript's photographs inCopy Anchor Link

The ingestion desk turns a pile of photographs into a manuscript's ordered, numbered folios. You open it from Import & arrange photographs… on the manuscript's page. It has three stages, shown as tabs.

1. Import brings photographs in. Drop them on the desk, or in Pangur for Mac choose Import photographs… to open the Photos import window. You can also record the hand's Language and Period here. Each new photograph is placed on a folio of its own, in the order it was shot.
2. Arrange puts the photographs on folios. Photographs that are not yet on a folio wait under Not yet placed. Select photographs and choose Combine onto one leaf (for a recto and a raking-light shot of the same side, say), A leaf each, or Return to pool. Add blank folio records a leaf that was described or found missing but never photographed. Label… pins a label by hand (leave it blank to use the numbering system), the controls beside each folio move it earlier or later, and Remove takes a folio away and returns its photographs to the pool.
3. Number gives the folios their labels from a numbering system such as foliation or pagination.

Photographs can also arrive from the iPhone's Capture, which files them into the catalogue as it uploads them (see Photograph a manuscript).

Deleting from the catalogueCopy Anchor Link

Delete… on an entry removes it, every entry below it, and every manuscript in that branch together with their folios and descriptions. The confirmation states how many descriptions and manuscripts will go. The photographs themselves are kept and return to the manuscript's pool, but they are no longer placed on folios.

The catalogue on other surfacesCopy Anchor Link

The iPhone and iPad app has a native Catalogue view, chosen from View as in the Library, with swipe actions for moving and deleting entries and an Expand all control. Its Capture can file photographs into existing folios or new ones. Pangur for Mac shows the web catalogue and adds Import photographs….

The command line and the MCP tools do not build the catalogue tree. pangur manuscript create makes a library item for a shelfmark rather than a catalogue entry (see the command-line reference).

In an organisation's project (a feature that is not offered on every account), members with the viewer role see the catalogue's controls but Pangur refuses their changes. They can still preview an add by reference, because the preview writes nothing.