In order to facilitate consistent tracking of special collections materials traveling between Yale Special Collections for use in instruction as well as consistent usage data for instruction/outreach-based Activities extracted from Aeon for reporting, please use the following guidelines in completing any Activity record for an instruction or outreach event. For other types of Aeon Activities (that is, Activity records whose Type field does not start with "Class-..."), consult your repository's local guidelines for instructions on how to fill out the Activity record in a standardized way that will be intelligible and useful to others in your repository.

Activity ID: Automatically assigned when you save the new Activity record.

Name: 

• Begin by following the guidelines in the Activity Maintenance box in the column to the right, under Nomenclature Conventions.
• After the BRBL: prefix, Beinecke staff should use Beinecke guidelines for the contents of this field: Class: Date | Times | Room Number | Name of Class.
  Example:  BRBL: Class: 09/26/19| 11:35-12:50 | RM 9 | Writing Seminars
  Other repositories are welcome to follow the Beinecke class Activity naming pattern.

Reference Number: Use this field only for Yale courses listed in the Blue Book/Yale Course Search. Use the course number exactly as listed there, with spaces (examples: AFAM 160, CSPC 300, ER&M 409, ENGL 946, MUS 512). Leave this field blank in all other circumstances.

Type: Use the most appropriate option, some of which are further explained below.

• Class- Non-Yale = The class session(s) is for a college/university course other than Yale, or a high school course.
• Class- Yale Course-Integrated = The class session(s) is for a regularly scheduled course in an academic institution (examples: Yale course, other college/university course, high school course).
• Class- Yale Other Program = The class session is for a formal program that isn't course-integrated (examples: conference, workshop, summer teacher seminar, summer campus program, speaker series).
• Open House/Tour = An open house or tour in which which collection materials are utilized, typically in a show-and-tell or exhibit fashion (examples: reunion or parents' weekend tour or open house, public event).

Description: Include a succinct description of the event, including the course name, or the name of the organization or program for which the instruction/outreach event is being offered.

Location: Choose the appropriate classroom or other location for the Activity from the pull-down menu in this field. If the location is not provided in the pull-down menu, contact Alison Clemens to have it added to the pull-down. In the meantime you can choose the closest approximation and then change it after the correct room has been added to the pull-down menu.

Begin Date:

• For Beinecke staff, use the date of the instruction/outreach event.
• For specialized repositories, use the date on which the Aeon Activity for the instruction/outreach event is created.

End Date:

• For Beinecke staff, use the date of the instruction/outreach event.
• For specialized repositories, choose a date that is approximately a week after the instruction/outreach event will occur in order to allow time for the Transactions associated with the Activity to be completed (that is, their status = Request Finished).

Notes: After creating the Activity, add any notes necessary for managing it. For example, you may want to note the exact date and time for a class session if that information isn't recorded elsewhere in the record.

Nomenclature Conventions:

Special Collections repositories should use their repository code followed by a colon (:), as the first element in the Name field on the Activity record. This makes the incredibly long active Activity list more manageable to scan visually:

ART: = Arts Library Special Collections | BRBL: Beinecke Library | DIV: Divinity Library Special Collections | LWL: = Lewis Walpole Library | MHL: = Medical Historical Library | MUS: = Music Library Special Collections | YCBA: = Yale Center for British Art | SHARED: Use for classes that are using materials from multiple sites.

In order to further help with filing order of their actively in-use Aeon Activities, some of the above repositories ask their staff to use a second standardized element in the Name field (e.g. Class: [...], Loan: [...]). Please consult your repository's representative on the Special Collections Public Services Advisory Group (SCPSAG) if you have questions about how to construct an Activity Name field to your repository's standards.

Periodic Deactivation of Activity Records No Longer in Use:

Each repository should also designate a point person to periodically (at least twice a year) browse that repository's list of active Activity records and deactivate (i.e., remove the check mark from the Active checkbox and then save the record) Activities that are no longer in use. This will help prevent the list of active Activities displayed on the home screen of the Staff Client from becoming even longer. There are several ways that you can assess whether an Activity is currently being used:

• The assigned End Date for the Activity has passed.
• All Transactions associated with the Activity are in the status Request Finished, Canceled by Staff, or Canceled by User.
• There were never any Transactions associated with the Activity (i.e., the "Requests" tab on the Activity record has nothing on it).

When in doubt, contact the person who created the Activity to inquire whether or not it is still being actively used (you'll find the NetID of the creator of the Activity on the "History" tab). Note that you should not deactivate any Activity when there are still in-use transactions (e.g., not Finished or some form of Canceled) that are associated with it.

Custom Searching of Deactivated Activity Records:

Atlas Systems provides excellent, step-by-step documentation on Custom Searching in Aeon on its Aeon web pages. The key to successful custom searches for deactivated Activities, though, is consistent metadata for each Activity so you can rely on common information being searchable in various Activity record fields. The SCPSAG does not recommend specific standardized data for any fields other than those listed on this tab; however, each repository is encouraged to develop local guidelines as deemed useful for its staff members in searching through its active and deactivated Activity records.