If I remeber correctly, back in the days Tim Noble developed a tool for cleaning up duplicate agents quite automatically. Perhaps applicable to other tables too. I presume via SQL.
Is it still alive and has anyone implemented it lately?
If that’s the case, is it something folks at SpCC need to run or it’s simple enough that advanced users can venture into? Or perhaps a combination of both.
Thanks so much.
Hi @igranzow,
I am excited to inform you that we are currently developing a record merging tool! We have already implemented agent merging on the back-end and are now working on developing a UI. We will be sharing more information about this project as soon as we are ready to demonstrate the new capabilities. We anticipate that the UI will be user-friendly enough for advanced users to navigate and utilize with ease.
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This agent merging tool that will be featured in the coming seminar will be a great addition.
However, for many collections with thousands of agents recorded (at MA, R. Jardín Botánico, we have > 43.8k agentIDs, all roles included –collector, cataloger, determiner, preparer, etc.) the need is for mass-scale merging. I would say 40% of agents are repeated at least once: sometimes identically, others as diverging spellings, abbreviations and combination of both. Some agent may appear as at least 20 different agentIDs, with very common names even up to 40 times (up to 40 different agentID’s).
What we would need to be able to do is, once the most obvious variants are identified as belonging to the same person (this done externally, of course) and their agentIDs matched, then automatically merge those agents/agentIDs in bulk.
At this point we are working on SQL commands, but was wondering if someone has put together ad hoc scripts or developed an effective workflow at this effect.
Thanks.