Virtual Archive of Logical Empiricism (VALEP)

This is the electronic hanbook of VALEP. In addition to this page, also consider the following information:

• On the history, hosts, and cooperation partners of VALEP see about VALEP
• See how VALEP is processing knowledge into metadata
• Or jump directly to VALEP

The scope and mission of VALEP

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VALEP is an archive management tool that is intended as a platform for the history of Logical Empiricism and related currents.

VALEP processes

• (left/red part of the window) the hierarchical structures of archives that include archives, collections, digitizations, shelfs, boxes, folders, files

• (middle/green part of the window) documents that process files of an archive into objects that belong to a certain document category, document type and become specified by means of metadata that include title, description, author, date

• (upper right/yellow part of the window) All archive nodes and documents are characterized by metadata that can be viewed in the upper right part of the window

• (lower right/blue part of the window) Files and documents can be watched in an integrated document viewer (already available) and they can be downloaded and printed (to be implemented in 2021)

VALEP stores titles, descriptions and the like as Unicode. But some metadata categories that include date, location, language, persons, and institutions are stored here via references in a relational database and/or using special formats and parsing tools, e.g., EDTF for data, and an internal tool for the mereological grasp of locations. See the metadata page for the details.

Is it digital humanities?

If one expects from a digital humanities project the adoption of sophisticated statistical methods of experimental research, then the answer is clearly no. Though the data pool being built by VALEP might in the future be used for the adoption of such methods, VALEP neither now nor in the near future is planning to integrate any tools for complex statistical evaluation.

On the other hand, VALEP is certainly aiming to collect large amounts of data. The history of Logical Empiricism, together with related currents such as Neokantianism, French Positivism, British Empiricism, and American Pragmatism, comprises of dozens of main figures and probably thousands of minor figures that include university and private scholars. The estates of many of these relevant figures are to be found in public institutions and private collections. Further material was collected by relevant universitarian and private institutions. There are thousands of manuscripts, publications, and probably millions of letters between representatives of the relevant currents that might be taken into account in one or another way, in our studies of Logical Empiricism. VALEP allows us to story any of these sources, as soon as we get them available in electronic form. Then, we can search them and filter them, in order to select the material that is relevant for us. This is, of course, also a variety of digital humanities.

Existing tools are document oriented and typically cover only rudimentary metadata

Existing tools for the management of archival sources include (1) those tools that university archives such as the Archives of Scientific Philosophy use; (2) open tools such as PhilArchive where everybody might upload electronic documents; (3) tools being tailored for the presentation of the material of a specific origin such as the papers of Ludwig Wittgenstein. All these tools have in common that they are more or less strictly document oriented. They do not mirror the physical structure of an archive but rather store documents that form a particular unit of metadata. This approach could be fruitful, if the processing of the documents might be rather well developed and the metadata might be clear and transparent and sufficiently complex.

However, the problem is that most of the existing tools cover only rather rudimentary metadata, and, in the case of the tools being used by public archives, the problem is often that they hardly process single documents as forming a logical unit of some kind (e.g. letter from Otto Neurath to Rudolf Carnap from December 26, 1934) but rather focus on those units being naturally provided by the archive, viz., folders that contain, e.g., several letters from Carnap to Neurath from the years 1923 to 1929 and sometimes might also include further material that does not directly relate to the main theme. In cases like that, complex metadata may not be possible at all, simply because the document units are too vague.

An archive oriented presentation might be helpful

In cases where a digital archive only covers rudimentary metadata and rather ambiguous documents, it might be most helpful to include a presentation of the digital material that represents the physical structure of an archive. Archives typically structure their material into collections and subcollections, shelfs, boxes, folders, and the like, and the finegrained structure of this organization of the material very often already represents a certain order, e.g., distinguishes between manuscripts and correspondence, puts some chronological order to the material and/or picks out certain topics or correspondence partners. Even if such an order is quite inconsistent and also covers pure chaos at times, users of an archive usually are able to use this order in a mnemotechnical way, often supported by useful finding aids that exist for an archive. Therefore, the most obvious way to make electronic archival sources more transparent and usable would be to add a perspective on the material that mirrors the physcial structure of the archive.

The logarithmic scale of archival work

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Note also that representing an archive in the way in which it is physically organized also yields a very strong pragmatic benefit. If a digitization of an archive is stored in folders that mirror the structure of the archive, then in VALEP one may upload the entire material, basically, with a single mouse click. The archival work being involved here is close to zero. On the other hand, if this archive is really large as, for example, the Schlick papers in Haarlem that comprise some 50,000 pages or the Carnap papers at the ASP that might come close to 100,000 pages, then one might expect that a carefull processing of the documents that belong to this archive might possibly need to process several tenthousands of documents. If an archivist, say, processes 20 documents per hour, this might amount at several years of full time work of an archivist. So, we compare here two extremely different points on the scale of gains divided by working time. Most of the available archival resources will never become processed into a fine grained document structure, for mere lack of time and financial resources. However, these sources might still be made available, at the level of representation of the physical structure of the source.

Adequate metadata are important

Metadata can be needlessly complex and confusing. A careful selection is important. This includes that a document should be associated only with these metadata categories that might become relevant for it. Only a letter, for example, has a receiver or a place of posting, whereas a manuscript unlike a published book or article may not offer any publication data. So, one important aspect of making making metadata adequate is to restrict documents of a certain category to those metadata categories being relevant here.

But metadata should also be carefully selected, regarding their format. This holds, in particular, for key metadata such as date and location. Dates should be able to cover not only (several) single days but also entire months or years, and date ranges, e.g. from December 24 1924 until October 1930. This allows one to cover also cases where the date of a document is not sufficiently localized or where a document was produced over a longer period and/or at different days or years. Locations, on the other hand, should become embedded into the mereological structure of geography. That Vienna, for example, belongs to Austria and Europe but also to the Habsburg Empire and the German speeking world, is a fact that is not easily to be reproduced but is needed in order to pick out all Viennese locations, if one filters documents from Vienna, Austria, Europe, the Habsburg Empire, or the German speeking world. Finally, in many other cases, e.g., regarding persons, institutions, languages, a consistently searchable and filterable layout is easily obtained if the database uses relational features and stores these items in certain predefined lists or tables. References to these predefined resources, however, should typically be optional, in order to keep the structure of a database as flexible as possible.

Documents might have instances (versions, chapters) being spread over different archival sources

An important aspect of the integration of several archival sources is that documents tend to be located not only in one folder/box that belongs to collection X. Rather, the following holds quite frequently:

• There is the original document being located in archive X, whereas copies are to be found in other archives, e.g., blueprints of an letter being kept by the sender (which might contain relevant information that the original letter does not provide)
• There are written duplicates of a document, transcriptions, and translations as well as commentaries that lie at very different archival locations.
• Finally, a document might disintegrate into several parts or chapters that, in turn, might be spread over different archives (some of them might be the orignal source, some might be copies, written duplicates, transcriptions, etc.)

A note on copyright

The international copyright situation dictates that it is unproblematic, in principle, to make all varieties of metadata openly available, whereas facsimiles may be published online only if (α) the copyright was granted to the publishers by the copyright holders, or (β) there is a legal situation that allows publication without explicit transfer of copyright. (β) falls into two typical case types: (β-1) publication of a document is possible if all involved authors died at least 70 years ago, which makes the material public domain; (β-2) publication is possible if the publishers can prove that the copyright holders could not be identified though the publishers tried to find them in several reasonable ways.

Keep material internal as long as the copyright issues could not be positively resolved

Another logarithmic scale is emerging here. It is often quite easy for big figures such as Carnap, Reichenbach, or Quine, to get copyrights granted for everything they wrote. But in their papers there is also a wealth of material that was written by others - letters TO Carnap, Quine, Reichenbach - or touches upon privacy rights of others - when Carnap talks in a letter ABOUT a person X. To solve all the copyright issues that emerge in a huge Nachlass might become a tedious and almost unmanagable task. Thereofore, it might be desirable that a an database enables to deal with these issues in a maximally flexible way. Material might be either kept internal in its entirety - metadata plus facsimiles - or it might become published (because metadata are unproblematic, in principle) but without public access to the facsimiles. Moreover, it should be possible to restrict access to the internal level of a database to those parts of the material that the account holder is allowed to see.

Desirable Features

Along the lines of these considerations, the following features would be desirable additions to the typical coverage of existing archival tools:

• To cover the physical structure of an archive (in order to serve the mnemotechnical skills of researchers and make existing finding aids more useful)
• To provide parts with high gains and low costs first and add the rest -- very high gains and very high costs -- only in these cases where the existing resources make this possible
• To provide a flexible handling of metadata categories that tailor them to the required document categories
• To ensure that critical metadata categories such as date and location use a most flexible, consistent and transparent format, together with suitable parsing tools (that avoid inconsistent entries)
• To implement other critical metadata via predefined lists and tables in a relational database setting, while keeping data fields optional whenever possible
• To provide suitable tools that enable the processing of decentralized documents that disintegrate into several versions and chapters
• To enable keeping parts of published material restricted - access to the metadata but not to the facsimiles - or even keeping metadata and the facsimiles internal, as long as copyright issues remain unsolved

VALEP offers them

Indeed, the aforementioned features are all offered by VALEP. The design of this tool was from the beginning centered around the idea of combining representation of an archive via its physical structure with representation via documents. The rest of the innovative features of VALEP in part directly followed from this key idea -- this is true, for example, for the implementation of versions and chapters who somewhat intermediate beteween (general) documents and archives --, and in part dived into the conception on the basis of feedback from archivists and the designer's own experience at the archives.

Who can use VALEP?

VALEP is available to everybody and it's free of charge in all its varieties. Typical users of VALEP might include:

• Public and private institutions that house material on the history of Logical Empiricism and want to use VALEP as a tool that helps them to distribute their sources and integrate them with other relevant material
• Private persons that hold collections being relevant for the history of Logical Empiricism and want to use VALEP not just to distribute and integrate their sources but also to safeguard them for the future
• Researchers from all over the world who digitized material in the archives and are willing to share this with others and/or want to use VALEP as a tool that allows them to process and better organize their sources

If you are interested in using VALEP as an institution, private person, or researcher, please contact Christian Damböck.

Future prospects

The recent (and first) version of VALEP was developed in 2020. It will be tested and optimized until March 2021. The resulting version, then, will be distributed to a wider audience. Until spring/summer 2021 we plan to implement, among other things, the following additional features:

• Persistent links to all objects of the archive tree and to all documents
• For each node of the archive tree the number of files that belong to this node becomes displayed
• Bundles of documents can be loaded to the file viewer
• The sequence of jpgs that is loaded to the file viewer can be downloaded as a pdf
• In the internal view (construction site) the nested content of any node of the archive tree can be downloaded to the local computer

Features to be implemented until 2022

• Integration of Phaidra: each published VALEP object becomes stored in Phaidra
• The possibility to selectively restore deleted VALEP objects
• Possibilities to mark objects in VALEP with flags, together with advanced filter tools

If you found any bugs, want to report shortcomings of VALEP or point to desired features, please contact Christian Damböck.

Practical tipps and hints for the use of VALEP

• VALEP is optimized for the Chrome browser and works well with Firefox; other browsers might also work but were not tested
• VALEP might sometimes hang: if strange things happen, you can set VALEP back to the initial state with F5 or a click on the refresh button of the browser
• VALEP is best suited for 4K screens but also works well in full HD; smaller screens also work but things might become tedious at times; VALEP is definitely not suited for use on the smartphone
• Modify your VALEP screen in sliding the borders between the parts of the screen (reset to the initial state with F5)
• If your screen tends to be too small try to maximize the VALEP window with F11
• You can use several instances of the VALEP window at the same time: open different VALEP objects in different browser tabs and browser windows or even different browser brands
• Whenever you receive a green message indicating that something has been created or updated, you are ensured that the information is available at the server; however, the information becomes visible in other windows of the browser only as soon as it becomes requested from the server; thus, under circumstances you may need to refresh the window to get the new information on the screen

The public part

The public part of VALEP is the site you are entering if you call valep.vc.univie.ac.at without logging in. The VALEP window disintegrates into the archive tree (on the left/red), the document part (in the middle/green), the metadata window (top right/yellow), and the file viewer (bottom right/blue). Versions contain those files of the archive tree that belong to a document and therefore connect the archive tree and the document part. Chapters put several documents together, which becomes visible in the bottom document window.

Slide borders and press F5

The borders between the parts of the window (archive tree, top and bottom document window, metadata window, file viewer) can be shifted. This allows you to customize the window whenever you want.

Whenever you want to set back the window to its initial state just press F5. But be aware that this will delete any selection you made in any part of the window: the result is the initial state of the window that you see when you first call valep.vc.univie.ac.at.

Archive tree (elements)

This is only an overview. For the details see the respective section in the metadata page.

The general structure of the archive tree is this:

• Archives (this is only the root of the tree, which does not represent anything in itself)
  • Archive X (A physical archive, either public or private)
    Examples: Institute Vienna Circle, Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Xs private collection
    • Y Collection (A collection that represents holdings on an authority Y, which can be either a person or an institution - Y collections might exist in several archives)
      Examples: Carnap collection, Vienna Circle collection
      • Digitization M (Digitizations of parts of the Y collection that form a unit of some kind)
        Examples: ASP original scans, Brenda's photographs, Trude's scans
        • Box O (Boxes might contain ...
          • Box P ... sub-boxes or folders, but no files)
            • Folder S (A folder is a box that is either empty or contains files and/or versions)
              • Version F (this is a list of files that is associated with a document - versions can only be created on the basis of a general document)
                Examples: Original letter Neurath to Carnap, 1935-05-12; Copy of Carnap, From Chaos to Reality
              • File a (A folder might contain several files that are ordered in VALEP on the basis of the alphabetic order of the file names - non-trivial metadata can be associated with files via versions only)
                Files can be photos (jpg), text files (pdf), audio (mp3) or video files (mp4)

Archive tree (click and doubleclick)

These are all clicking operations being possible in the archive tree (in public view):

• An arrow on the left of an element indicates that there is content their. Just click on the arrow and the content folds out. Click the arrow again and the content is hidden again.
• Click on an Element (text) in itself and the metadata are displayed in the top right window
• Double click on a version, to display the document in the bottom middle window (not yet implemented but coming soon)
• Double click on a file, to display the sequence of files to which it belongs in the file viewer

Documents (top window)

In the upper part of the document window, a list of all VALEP documents is shown, which is per default sorted by the processing date of the documents (the most recently edited document shows up on top). These are possible actions:

• Sort the documents in a different way. Options are
  • Sort by processing date (most recently edited top)
  • Sort by title (A top, Z bottom)
  • Sort by document date (oldest top)
  • Group by authors (A top, Z bottom), sort by date (oldest top)
• Filter the documents. You can (de)activate the filter by clicking on the active box.
  To change the filter click Filter and select among the options:
  • Full Text: this covers recently only title and description; in later versions of VALEP it might also cover the signatures of versions and the OCR analyzed full text of the files of a document
  • Document category, display, e.g., only letters or photographs
  • Date, select all documents whose date matches the date or period you are entering (you may use the EDTF format only)
  • Location, select all documents whose location matches the entered address, city, or area (not available yet, coming soon)
  • Collection, select all documents that belong to any instance of the X collection (not available yet, coming soon)
  • And Box, activate, to select those documents that match the author, receiver, and involved authorities you are entering, deactivate, to combine these filters with a logical "OR"
  • Author, Receiver, Involved: You may enter in any of this field several persons or institutions, in order to display those documents that match these criteria

There are similar clicking operations here as in the archive tree. Only differences:

• Double click on a document opens the document (and its chapters) in the bottom document window
• Double click on a version opens the version in the archive tree (not available yet, coming soon)

Documents (bottom window)

In the public view the purpose of the bottom window is twofold:

• To watch all chapters of a document
• To watch a document of which a version was doubleclicked in the archive tree

Here, doubleclick on a version opens the latter in the archive tree (not yet implemented but coming soon).

Versions

Versions connect documents and files. In other words, they are the missing link between the archive tree and the document window. Note these features:

• Documents might contain any number of versions of any version type
• Double click the title of a version in the top or bottom document window, to display this version in the archive tree (coming soon)
• Double click the title of a version in the archive tree to display the document in the bottom document window
• Double click on any file of a version, to display the sequence of files of the version in the file viewer
• Click on a version, to display its metadata
• Note that each version of a document has extra metadata that add to the overall metadata of the general document

Chapters

Chapters are sequences of general documents that put together several parts of, e.g., a manuscript being spread over different locations. To display the sequence of chapters of a document, you need to doubleclick it in the top document window. The sequence, then, becomes displayed in the bottom document window.

Metadata Window

For all elements of the archive tree, the metadata window is just one-piece.

For general documents and versions, the metadata window disintegrates into four parts, vertical, from top to bottom:

• The status line that comprises the document category, document type, and title of a document
• The General section that contains the most relevant metadata of general documents
• The Details section that covers the rest of the metadata of general documents
• The Version section that covers the metadata of versions

The File Viewer

The file viewer changes its appearance for different types of files: an image viewer (for jpgs), a pdf viewer, and a video viewer for mp3s and mp4s.

• Use the cross-in-a-circle-symbol in the upper right corner to maximize the file viewer, return wis Esc or another click on the symbol
• Click through the files in the list on the left, in the top status line and with the arrows at the bottom of the window
• Use the arrows ↻ and ↺ to rotate the image or pdf
• Use the + and - symbols or the mouse wheel to decrease or increase the view
• Use the maximize icon above the file list to fit an image to the screen
• Use the pdf symbol to download a pdf that includes the entire sequence of jpgs from the file list (not yet implemented, coming soon)

The internal part (Construction Site) - all users except admins

User accounts and roles

To access the internal part of VALEP and/or view the restricted files of the public view, you need to register. In order to register send an email to Christian Damböck where you might indicate your plans. We then will decide together, what type of access is applicable in your case.

These are possible user roles in VALEP. Which role you might obtain, depends on your tasks and relationship to the IVC and/or the institutions that host material in VALEP:

Read only

• Friend is a user who gets reading access to all restricted files in the published part VALEP
  This user role is restricted to members, friends, and close cooperation partners of the IVC
• Guest is a user who gets reading access to a selection of the internal part (not yet implemented, coming soon)
  This is for all users who get granted reading access to parts of the internal material in VALEP
• Member is a user who gets reading access to all objects of the published and internal part of VALEP
  This is for members of the IVC only

Read and write

• Beginner is a user who gets full read and write access to those published and unpublished objects of VALEP where the user is specified as owner.
  This is suited to every user who wants to learn VALEP and use it in any possible way
• Advanced is a user who gets full read and write access to all parts of VALEP
  For members of the IVC only
• Admin has also access to the Admin part of VALEP.

Login

After logging in with your user account, depending on your user role, VALEP might look differently:

• Friend: VALEP does not change its appearance but you can view the content of every file
• Guest and Member: in the top left corner, to the right of the elephant, you have two buttons Constrution and Public now
  • Public restricts what you see to the public part of VALEP -- you may use it at times, to get a better overview
  • Construction adds to the public material (font color black) material that is only visible in the internal construction site of VALEP (font color grey)
• Beginner and Advanced: like Guest and Member you may shift between the Public and Construction view; in addition:
  • You can see the toolbar that allows you to call certain operations: upload files and folders, add nodes to the archive tree, create documents, and delete objects
  • You may add objects to and remove objects from all these nodes in the archive tree where you have permission
  • You may create general documents and versions and you may also delete them, if you have permission
  • You may change metadata for all these objects where you are permitted to do so

How to edit fields in the metadata window

• Some of the metadata fields are rather self explanatory - just try to use them
• Examine the metadata page, before you start

Text fields

• Text fields (title, description, URL) may contain any UNICODE text
• Just enter or edit the text
• As soon as you klick somewhere outside of the text field you should see the green message box ""Updated X successfully

Persons/Institutions

• Most metadate fields of the category person/institution may contain several entries
• Enter some characters of the name of the person or institution you want to specify
• If the correct name shows up, click on it or move down with the keyboard and press enter
• If the name is not on the list, press + on the right of the metadata field (not yet implemented but coming soon)
  • Select Person or Institution
  • Enter an abbreviated name, which needs to be unique
  • Enter any further data, as needed
  • Click OK
• Optionally, you may enter further persons/institutions (unless the data field accepts only one entry)
• Click somewhere else and watch out for the Updated X successfully message

Language, Card File, Document Format, Copying Process

• Enter some characters of the name you are searching for
• If the correct name shows up, click on it or move down with the keyboard and press enter
• If the item you need does not exist, ask the admin to create it for you

Date

• Most metadata fields of the category date may contain several date-time entries
• Enter the first string in the field which should match the EDTF format as outlined in the metata page
• Press ENTER (this is required, otherwise the date field is NOT going to be updated)
• If required, also enter further EDTF strings and each time press ENTER again (unless the data fields accepts only one date)
• Click somewhere outside and watch out for the Updated X successfully message
• This is the point where the date entries are sent to the parser, i.e., if you entered in invalid date (try, e.g., 1910-12-32) you get an error message Invalide EDTF data and the wrong entries are getting removed
• Try this several times, because it needs some acquaintance to get settled with this

Location

• Most metadata fields of the category location may contain several location entries
• Try first to enter several characters of the address that you plan to enter (cf. the specification in the metadata page)
• If the address you want to specify shows up in the list, just click on the item or move down with the keyboard and press enter
• If the address is not in the list, press the + symbol on the right of the data field
• Enter city: again, type several characters of the city name, if it shows up just select the city; otherwise click the + symbol:
  • Enter the city name
  • Then specify the most convenient area
  • This should be the smallest area to which the city belongs
  • Ask the admin, if you have troubles with this, but note also that the assignment of the city to an area could also be changed later
• Enter further information (street, postal code, etc.), if applicable
• Leave these further fields empty, if the address should only specify the name of a city
• Click OK or press enter
• Optionally, you may enter further addresses to the field (unless the data field accepts only a single location)
• Click somewhere else and watch out for the Updated X successfully message

Event

• Most metadata fields of the category event may contain several event entries
• Try first to enter several characters of the event that you plan to enter (cf. the specification in the metadata page)
• If the event shows up on the list, click it or move down with the keyboard and press enter
• If the event does not show up, press the + symbol on the right of the data field
  • Type in a label and select an event type (required)
  • Optionally, you may also add location, address, and a description of the event
  • Click OK to create the event
• Optionally, you may enter further events to the data field (unless the data field accepts only a sengle event)
• Click somewhere else and watch out for the Updated X successfully message

How to create, edit, and delete parts of the archive tree

Operations in this section are accessible only to some users, as indicated in the login section.

How to create, edit, and delete an archive

• Right click on Archives and click Add child node / or click on archives and then click + in the toolbar
• Enter the name of the newly created archive and press Ok or type Enter
• To edit the archive, click on the name of the new archive and enter or edit the metadata (note that the owners field can be changed only by the admin)
• To delete the archive, right click on the name and click Delete / or click on the name and then on the paper basket symbol in the toolbar

How to create, edit, and delete a collection

• Right click on the archive where you want to establish the collection and click Add child node / or click on the archive and then click + in the toolbar
• Enter some characters of the name of the person or institution the collection is representing, then select the correct name from the list (either click or move down with the keyboard and press enter) and press Ok or type Enter
  • If the person or institution you are needing is not in the list, ask the admin to create it for you
• To edit the collection, click on the name of the new collection and enter or edit the metadata (note that the owners field can be changed only by the admin)
• To delete the collection, right click on the name and click Delete / or click on the name and then on the paper basket symbol in the toolbar

How to create, edit, and delete a digitization

Note that you can also upload a folder to a collection, which then is automatically interpreted as a digitization: see How to upload a folder

• Right click on a collection and click Add child node / or click on the collection and then click + in the toolbar
• Enter the name of the newly created digitization and press Ok or type Enter
• To edit the digitization, click on the name of the new digitization and enter or edit the metadata (note that the owners field can be changed only by the admin)
• To delete the digitization, right click on the name and click Delete / or click on the name and then on the paper basket symbol in the toolbar

How to create, edit, and delete a box

You may usually create boxex not directly but upload it from your computer: see How to upload a folder; however, it might be sometimes useful to create boxes directly, in order to structure the content of a digitization:

• Right click on either a digitization or a box and click Add child node / or click on the collection and then click + in the toolbar
• Enter the name of the newly created box and press Ok or type Enter
• To edit the box, click on the name of the new digitization and enter or edit the metadata (note that the owners field can be changed only by the admin)
• To delete the box, right click on the name and click Delete / or click on the name and then on the paper basket symbol in the toolbar

How to upload files to the archive tree

Operations in this section are accessible only to some users, as indicated in the login section.

How to prepare files and folders for uploading

A key aspect of VALEP is that you can upload arbitrarily nested structures that belong to a folder, i.e., an uploaded folder might contain folders, subfolders, subfolders of subfolders etc. However, please note the following restrictions and hints:

• Use either Firefox or (even better) Chrome
• You can always upload only a single folder at once (though one that might have a very complex and nested content); if you have 100 folders that you plan to upload, put them into a single folder and upload this
• Uploaded folders may not contain any files having extensions other than .jpg, .pdf, .mp3, or .mp4
• File names must not contain dots except for the one that precedes the file name extension
• No folder in the uploaded folder structure may contain both files and folders; in other words, files are contained in a special type of folder in VALEP, which cannot contain folders among files
• Folders and files are ordered in the archive tree, exclusively, in an alphabetic way; this alphabetic order is critical, because you can only entire entire subsequences of an alphabetically ordered content of a folder to a version
• jpgs must be compressed to less than 600KB; though VALEP is also able to compress the files during the uploading process this might slow down the process and compression during the upload sometimes fails
• Try also to keep your pdfs, mp3 and mp4 files small; there is no internal compressing of these files; any file that you upload to VALEP must not be larger than 15MB
• If a folder contains more than 1.000 files and/or 1GB, please discuss the upload in advance with the admin
• Note that very large uploads (of several 10,000 files) might become more tricky, never try them without assistance of the admin

How to upload a folder

• First read the previous section and prepare your files and folders in a sufficient way
• Click on the collection, digitization, or box where you want to place your folder
• Click on the upload folder symbol in the middle of the toolbar
• Select the folder on your local computer and press OK

How can I track the upload? How can it fail?

• In the toolbar, the progress of your upload is reportet; typically, it uploads 4 files in a batch, uploading of one batch should take only a few seconds
• To track the success report and possible error messages during the upload press F12 in Chrome or Firefox and select Console
• If you interrupt the process by shutting down the browser or the computer, the upload fails and there is no possibility to continue; in that case, just delete the initial fragmented upload and try again
• If the upload fails several times, please contact the admin
• These are known cases that lead to problems with the upload of specific files:
  • Jpgs being larger than 600KB sometimes cannot be compressed by VALEP, which leads to an error message and failure of the upload of this file
  • If a file contains a dot somewhere in the file name, VALEP deletes those parts of the file name between the dot and the file name extension; though the upload works, the resulting cropped file name may corrupt the intended ordering of the uploaded files
  • Files, in general, must not be larger than 15MB

How to upload files

The standard way of getting files into the archive tree is to upload a folder. However, in some cases it might be necessary to upload just several files into an existing folder:

• Examine the hints in the upload a folder section.
• Ensure that the box/folder to which you plan to upload your files is either empty or only contains files
• Click on the box or folder where you want to place your files
• Click on the upload files symbol in the middle of the toolbar
• Select the files on your local computers (several files might be selected at once) and click OK

How to create, edit, and delete general documents

Operations in this section are accessible only to some users, as indicated in the login section.

How to create a general document

Before you create a general document, please examine the details on general documents in the metadata section.

• Click on the create new general document symbol in the toolbar or right click in the upper document window and click Create new general document
• In the New Document window you need to select the Document Category (which cannot be changed later), if the document is a file card you also need to select the card file to which it belongs
• All other metadata fields in the New Document window are optional; deal with them to your taste, you can change the data at any time
• If you have questions about how a particular metadata category works, please consult the metadata page
• Press OK when you are done

Who can edit or delete a general document?

• Responsible for this is the Document status which is indicated in the Details section of a general document
• General documents with the document status Beginner can be edited or deleted by any user who has writing permissions
• General documents with the document status Advanced can not be edited or deleted by users whose role is Beginner
• General documents with the document status Admin can be edited or deleted only by the admin
• The document status can be changed by the admin only

How to edit a general document

• If necessary, search for the document using the filter tab and the ordering function
• Click on the document either in the upper or the lower document window
• Change any metadata in the upper section (document type, title), in the General or Details section
• Note that you cannot change the document category and the card file (exists only for file cards), cf. the next paragraph
• Note that the Document status can be changed only by the admin

How to change the document category or file card to which a document is asigned

• The only way is to delete the document and create a new one with the correct document category and/or file card
• Better first create the new document and then delete the old one, to prevent losing information

How to delete a general document

• Click on the general document and then click on the paper basket symbol in the toolbar
• Read the Who can edit or delete a general document? section, if it doesn't work

How to create, edit, and delete versions

Before you proceed, read the versions section in the metadata page. Operations in this section are accessible only to some users, as indicated in the login section.

Who can create, edit or delete a version?

• You need the permission to edit the general document to which the version belongs or will belong
• Thus, examine the How to create, edit, and delete general documents section first

How to create a version

• Double click the general document to which the version will belong in the upper document window -- it should show up in the lower document window
• Select the files of the versions in the archive tree: click on the first file of the sequence, hold Shift, then click on the last file of the sequence
• Click on the selection and pull it to the appropriate Add version entry in the list in the lower document window
• Move the mouse slowly and, in the lower document window, wait until the appropriate Add version line is getting gray - this will take a few seconds: only then you may release the mouse
• Wait a few seconds: if the version contains many files, it may take a while until the green Successfully created new Version" message pops up
• If it doesn't work, try again!

How to edit a version

• Click on the version
• Edit the Version tab in the metadata window

How to delete a version

• Open the version in the lower document window
• Right click on the version and press Delete or click on the version and then on the paper basket symbol in the toolbar

How to create, edit, and delete chapters

Operations in this section are accessible only to some users, as indicated in the login section.

What is a chapter?

• Several general documents can be combined to a sequence of chapters
• Each general document can be part of at most one sequence of chapters
• To see the sequence of chapters to which a general documents might belong, you need to open it in the lower document window (just double click the document in the upper window or double click any of its versions in the archive tree)

How to add a chapter

• Open the chapter sequence in the lower document window to which you want to add a chapter (double click in the upper document window on any general document that belongs to the sequence or double click in the archive tree on any version that belongs to the sequence)
• Click in the upper document window on the document that you want to add to the sequence and pull it carefully to the correct position in the lower window (the document is placed correctly if you can see a horizontal blue stroke), then release the document
• Try again, if it didn't work!

How to remove a chapter

• Open the chapter sequence in the lower document window from which you want to remove a chapter (double click in the upper document window on any general document that belongs to the sequence or double click in the archive tree on any version that belongs to the sequence)
• Right click on the chapter you want to remove and click Remove chapter
• Do NOT click Delete because this would delete the entire document!

The internal part (Admin)

There is an internal part in VALEP, which is accessible to the admin only, who can edit the following things there:

• Users can be created, edited and removed
• A number of tables and structures that contain important data of VALEP can be edited here; these include:
  • Document formats
  • Copying Processes
  • Institutions
  • Persons
  • Locations
  • Events
  • Card Files

Some of these structures can be also edited in a limited way in the Construction Window. This includes the following things:

• Addresses and Cities can be created directly in the metadata window by any authorized user: just click the plus symbol on the right of a location field
• Events can be created in the metadata window by any authorized user: just click the plus symbol on the right of an event field
• Persons and Institutions can be created in the metadata window by any authorized user (in a future version of VALEP)

In general, however, changes to the Admin section are to be done by the admin.