--- title: Containers and Contents description: Group artifacts into containers — survey records, albums, folders, archival series — and build, browse, and import their nested contents. section: guides order: 11 updated: 2026-07-14 verified: 2026-07-14 related: [guides/importing-photos, guides/working-with-artifacts, guides/collections-and-permissions] features: [artifact-containment] --- # Containers and Contents Use containers when a record holds other records — a HABS survey with its photographs and drawings, an album of prints, a finding-aid series, or a multi-part item. A container groups artifacts *below* a collection, so the structure of the original material survives the import. ## What a container is A container is an ordinary artifact with the type **Group**. It holds other artifacts through *contains* relationships, and any artifact can be contained by more than one container. The thing that makes an artifact a container is simply that it contains something — you can add or remove contents at any time. Containers sit below collections, not in place of them. A collection is still the flat, browsable home for material; a container reproduces the internal hierarchy of one record. ## Build a container Open the artifact's edit page and use the **Contents** section (you need editor access). The public artifact page shows contents read-only — visitors and editors alike see the list there, but building and rearranging happens on the edit page. A Group-type artifact's public page opens contents-first, with no media viewer. - **Add item** — search your institution and attach an existing artifact. Artifacts that would create a loop (the container itself or anything it already sits inside) are excluded, and the server rejects any cycle that slips through. - **Create new item** — make a stub child with a title and type, then open it later to finish cataloging. - **Reorder** — drag children into the order you want. The whole sibling order is saved at once. - **Role and label** — in reorder mode, set each child's role (Photograph, Drawing, Page, Series, Folder, …) and a label such as "Plate 3." Roles group the contents under friendly headings. - **Remove** — detaching a child removes it from this container only. The child artifact is never deleted, and it keeps any other containers it belongs to. Children are grouped by role when you view the contents, and you can expand a child to see its own contents without leaving the page. ## "Part of" — a child's containers An artifact that belongs to a collection or a container shows a compact **Part of** list on its public page — one line per collection and per container. An artifact in neither shows no Part of section at all. One container is the **primary** parent; it drives breadcrumbs and previous/next navigation. To change the primary parent or remove the artifact from a container, open the artifact's edit page and use the **Part of** and **Contents** sections. You can also place a new artifact into a container as you create it: the New Artifact form has an optional **Add to container** field that attaches the artifact as a child right after it's created. ## Import a hierarchy Two providers bring their structure in automatically through batch import (**Operations → Import → New**): - **Library of Congress** — paste a `loc.gov/item/…` or search URL. A HABS/HAER survey record (for example `loc.gov/item/wa0120/`) imports as a Group container with its photographs and drawings as contained items. A single item is also importable from the **New Artifact** page's *Import from URL* dialog, though that creates one artifact rather than the full hierarchy. - **NYPL** — upload a NYPL API export (`api.repo.nypl.org` JSON). A collection export rebuilds the collection-and-series tree as nested Group containers; a search export imports as a flat batch. Re-importing is safe: items are matched by their provider identity, so the same record is never duplicated, and edits you make to the contents are preserved. ## Find containers when browsing Containers and their contents both appear in browse by default. A container shows a **Contains N items** badge — counting only the items the current visitor is allowed to see. Two toggles refine the view: - **Containers only** — show just the grouping records. - **Hide items inside containers** — show only top-level material. ## Delete a container Deleting a container with contents offers a choice: - **Delete container only** — the contents detach and remain (top-level, or inside any other container they belong to). - **Delete container and contents** — removes the contents that exist *only* inside this container; anything also held by another container is kept. The dialog shows both counts before you confirm. Deletions are soft, so a container and the contents removed with it can be restored together. Items you had explicitly detached stay detached. ## A note on visibility Containment is an organizing device, not a permission. Putting an item in a public container does **not** make the item public, and vice versa — visibility is still decided by the item's own collections, its visibility override, and the institution default. When you add an item whose visibility differs from the container's, the editor *offers* to align it, but never changes it for you. :::tip To represent page scans or sheets of a single object, keep them as the artifact's assets (the thumbnail strip) rather than separate contained items. Containers are for records that are themselves catalogable items. :::