Skip to Main Content

University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Site Navigation Menu

IDEALS: IDEALS Administrators

This guide has information on how to deposit and access IDEALS materials for individuals and collection administrators.

Structure of IDEALS

IDEALS content is organized around units which generally correspond to scholarly or research units such as schools, departments, labs and research centers. Units can be organized into parent and child units, often used for narrower research units, or collections. A collection can contain deposited items. A full list of units and collections is available to browse.

IDEALS requires every unit to have an administrator who is responsible for child units and items; for example, unit administrators can decide:

  • The structure of their unit;

  • Who can submit items;

  • Whether there will be a review process for submitted items; and

  • Whether there will be access restrictions on a specific collection.

Editing Items

To Add Additional Files:

Log into IDEALS and go to the item page. To the right of the item's title, select "Upload File." A popup will open displaying the existing files within the item above a space to drag-and-drop new files, or click the space to select files from your computer. When finished, simply close the popup.

To Edit Item Metadata: 

Log into IDEALS and go to the page for the item whose metadata you want to change. Below the item viewer and permalink you'll find the "Description" section. Next to the section header, click "Edit." The item's metadata will appear in popup, where it can be edited. To add new metadata elements, scroll to the bottom of the popup and select the "Add Element" button.

Starting Units and Collections

To ensure that the type of material you would like to include in your unit meets the IDEALS criteria, review the:

To Start a Unit:

Departments, research centers, research labs, and other groups may establish a unit in IDEALS for your research and scholarship. 

To start a new unit, email ideals@library.illinois.edu with the following information:

  • Name and email of the unit liaison (the administrator for the unit)
  • Basic information about the unit, including name, requesting organization/department, and a brief description of the type of material to be included
  • If you would like IDEALS staff to set up the structure of the unit (in terms of parent/child units and collections), provide an outline 
  • If you want specific individuals or a group to have permissions to deposit into collections or to manage child units and collections, please provide the NetIDs of those people (you can manage this task yourself as well). Please note that the IDEALS staff can also use Active Directory groups to do this.
  • Any other special arrangements that you need such as access restrictions.

Managing Units and Collections

Only a unit administrator may manage a unit or collection. 

As a unit or collection administrator, when you navigate to your unit or collection in IDEALS, you will see new options in the Items, About this Unit/Collection, and Access pages.

For detailed information about your privileges as an IDEALS Administrator, please visit the IDEALS Wiki page on Managing Units and Collections.