Introduction

Memory Atlas is a macOS application for arranging, describing and preparing your archives for preservation. You build the tree of a fonds (fonds, series, files, items), describe each level following the ISAD(G) standard, link your descriptions to authority records and to your digital files, then export a transfer package for Obscura Flow.

This guide is a step-by-step tutorial. It follows a single example from start to finish: Léa Martin, a photographer, describes thirty years of studio archives and prepares the transfer of her “Project A — Lisières.” Every screenshot comes from the application, using this same example.

Contents

1. Install and get started — install the application, the welcome window, choose the language.
2. Create a repository — the .atlas file, the country code and the repository code, the repository identity.
3. Build the tree — create the fonds, its series, files and items; rename, move, filter, Trash.
4. Describe a unit — the Essential and Complete modes, dates, extent, “Mark Described.”
5. Inheritance — state once, at the fonds level, what applies to all its descendants.
6. Authorities and access points — creators, linked persons and corporate bodies; places, subjects, genres.
7. The accession register — gifts, deposits and purchases, and how they link to fonds.
8. Digital objects — associate files without copying them, create one item per file, find a file that has moved.
9. Search — global search, its filters and the ⌘K command palette.
10. Validate and transfer — validate a branch, “Prepare for Preservation,” track transfers.
11. Settings and safety copies — language, default mode, export folder, automatic copies and restoring.
12. Troubleshooting and FAQ — read-only mode, damaged repository, file not found…

The example used in this guide

Léa Martin, born in Lyon in 1968, describes her archives in a repository named “Léa Martin Archives” (country code FR, repository code STX). The final tree looks like this:

Photographic fonds                       FR-STX/PH
├── Personal projects                     FR-STX/PH/1
│   ├── Project A — Lisières              FR-STX/PH/1/A
│   │   ├── Research                      FR-STX/PH/1/A/REC
│   │   ├── Negatives                     FR-STX/PH/1/A/NEG
│   │   ├── Scans (12 items, one per file)       FR-STX/PH/1/A/SCN
│   │   └── Prints                        FR-STX/PH/1/A/TIR
│   └── Project B — Rivages               FR-STX/PH/1/B
├── Commissions (creator: Studio X)       FR-STX/PH/2
├── Exhibitions                           FR-STX/PH/3
├── Publications                          FR-STX/PH/4
└── Correspondence                        FR-STX/PH/5

Léa is the creator of the fonds; the “Commissions” series has a different creator, the Studio X agency. The fonds came in through a deposit recorded in the accession register. The twelve scans of Project A stay in their Finder folder: Memory Atlas keeps a link to each one, never a copy.

Conventions

• Interface labels are written in bold or in quotation marks: New Child Unit, “Mark Described.”
• A menu path is written File › Repository Identity….
• Keyboard shortcuts use the Mac symbols: ⌘ (Command), ⌥ (Option), ⇧ (Shift), ⌃ (Control), ↩ (Return), ⌫ (Delete).
• Numbers like 3.1.2 refer to the elements of the ISAD(G) standard; the application shows them next to the fields (you can hide them in the settings).
• A “repository” is the .atlas file that holds your fonds; the word is used as is in the interface.

The interface is in French by default. Settings › General › Interface language switches it to English (see chapter 11).