--- title: Custom Fields and Field Packs description: Add discipline-specific fields to your artifacts by adopting standards-aligned packs or authoring your own. section: guides order: 16 updated: 2026-06-25 verified: 2026-06-25 related: [ guides/collections-and-permissions, guides/subjects-concepts-and-authorities, guides/working-with-artifacts, guides/importing-photos, guides/metadata-harvesting, ] features: [custom-fields, import-sessions] --- # Custom Fields and Field Packs Decide which fields your catalogers see on artifacts — credit line and provenance for everyone, mineral hardness for the geology collection, negative numbers for one loose photograph. You define a field once, then choose where it appears. Custom fields live in your **Field Library** under **Admin → Custom Fields**. Authoring fields and adopting packs requires an administrator; editors can apply existing fields to collections and individual artifacts. ## How fields get shown Defining a field is separate from showing it. A field in the Library appears on an artifact only when something _applies_ it, at one of three scopes that combine: - **Base set** — fields shown on every artifact in the institution. - **Collection** — fields (or whole packs) applied to a collection, shown on its members. An artifact in several collections shows the union of all of them. - **By object type** — fields (or packs) applied automatically by _what the object is_ — its object name, type, or classification. See [Apply fields by object type](#apply-fields-by-object-type) below. - **This item** — fields a cataloger attaches to a single artifact with the **Add fields** picker on the New or Edit screen. The definition always comes from the Library, so a field means the same thing everywhere it appears, and editing it once updates every record that uses it. ## Set up with AI If you'd rather not build a schema field by field, describe your collection in plain language and get a proposed starting point to review. 1. Open **Admin → Custom Fields**. 2. Under **Set up with AI**, write a sentence or two about what you collect and how you catalog it — for example, "We're a regional geology museum with a mineral collection and some fossils; we track where each specimen was collected and by whom." 3. Choose **Propose fields**. The proposal comes back in two parts: - **Recommended packs** — existing standards-aligned packs that fit your description. Prefer these: they carry stable keys and import/export crosswalks. - **Suggested fields** — bespoke fields for anything the packs don't cover, each with a type, a section, and a draft of whether it should be required or private. Nothing is applied automatically. Clear the checkbox on anything you don't want, then choose **Apply selected to draft**. The packs and fields drop into the editor below exactly as if you'd added them by hand — adjust labels, types, sections, and the required/private flags, then **Save changes** to adopt them. :::note The assistant never proposes a field for controlled-vocabulary terms — object name, material, technique, culture, subject, and the like. Those belong in [Concepts](/docs/en-US/guides/subjects-concepts-and-authorities); any such suggestion is excluded and shown under "belongs in Concepts" so you know why. Treat the required flag and crosswalk as starting drafts to confirm. ::: ## Adopt a field pack A pack is a curated, standards-aligned set of fields for a discipline — Fine Art, Photography, Natural History, Geology, Archaeology, Film, Numismatics, Archives, and more. 1. Open **Admin → Custom Fields**. 2. Under **Field packs**, find a pack and choose **Adopt**. Adopting **copies** the pack's fields into your Library. You then own them: rename a label, drop a field, add an option, and your records are never rewritten when we revise the pack. When a pack has a newer version, a **pack updated** banner offers to review and re-adopt — re-adopting adds any new fields without touching your edits. Adopting a pack puts its fields in your Library. To make them appear on records, add them to the base set or apply them to a collection (below). ## Author your own field When no pack field fits: 1. Under **Library fields**, choose **Add field**. 2. Enter a **label** and pick a **type** (text, number, date, a "circa" fuzzy date, dimensions, a measurement, a geographic point, a repeatable group, and more). 3. A stable **key** is proposed from the label. The key is the permanent identifier used by storage, import, and export — it cannot change after you create the field, even though you can rename the label freely. 4. Optionally assign a **section** so the field groups with related ones on the form. :::note Controlled-vocabulary terms — object name, material, technique, culture, subject — belong in [Concepts](/docs/en-US/guides/subjects-concepts-and-authorities), not custom fields, so they stay searchable and authority-linked. The field editor warns when a new field looks like one of these. Keep only original wording here (for example a "materials statement" describing how the source recorded it). ::: ## Organize with sections and a base set - **Sections** group fields under headings on the New, Edit, and detail screens. Add and reorder them under **Sections**. - The **Show on all records** checkbox on a field adds it to the institution base set. ## Apply fields to a collection To show a set of fields on every artifact in a collection: 1. Open the collection under **Admin → Collections** and edit it. 2. Under **Custom fields**, check the packs or individual fields to apply. A geology collection can apply the Geology pack while the rest of your archive never sees those fields. ## Apply fields by object type Collections group records by where they live in your catalog. Sometimes you instead want fields to follow _what the object is_ — every mineral should show hardness and crystal system, every coin should show denomination and grade — regardless of which collection holds it. **Classification rules** do exactly that. 1. Open **Admin → Custom Fields** and find **Classification rules**. 2. Choose **Add rule** and give it a name, such as "Geology objects". 3. Under **When the object's concept matches any of**, enter the object name, type, or classification terms that should trigger the rule — for example `Mineral`, `Rock`, `Fossil`. Leave the role as **Any** to match an object name, type, or classification, or narrow it to a specific role. 4. Check the **packs** and **fields** to apply when an object matches. The rule reads the object's [Concepts](/docs/en-US/guides/subjects-concepts-and-authorities) — the controlled terms you already record for object name, type, and classification — so catalogers never re-type anything. The moment a cataloger sets an artifact's object type to one of your terms, the rule's fields appear on the form, in their proper sections. An object that matches several rules shows the union of all of them. Because rules match on the terms in Concepts, they work for loose objects that belong to no collection at all. Set up with AI can also propose rules for you when your description mixes object kinds (minerals and fossils, paintings and photographs) — review them alongside the suggested packs and fields before applying. ## Add fields to a single item On an artifact's New or Edit screen, below the custom fields, choose **Add fields** to attach Library fields to that one record — the answer to a handful of loose objects that each need something extra. Fields already shown by the base set or a collection are marked _always shown_. Removing a field you added is non-destructive: it hides the field but keeps any value you entered. The form notes when an item has data in hidden fields so nothing is lost silently. ## Fill custom fields when importing When you import a metadata file, the **Map Fields** step lets you send a source column to one of your Library custom fields, not just the built-in title/date/creator fields. Pick the field from the **Artifact field** dropdown — your custom fields are grouped by section below the standard ones. If a column's name matches a field's standards crosswalk — a Dublin Core, Darwin Core, MARC, CDWA, or LIDO term — the wizard pre-selects the matching field and marks the row **suggested**. Confirm or change it; nothing is written without your mapping. A few things to expect: - **Values are converted to the field's type.** A "24 x 18 cm" column mapped to a dimensions field becomes structured measurements; a date column mapped to a fuzzy date keeps the original wording. If a value can't be converted, it isn't dropped — it's stashed with the record so you can fix the mapping and re-import. - **Imported fields show up automatically.** A field you map on import is attached to each imported artifact even if it isn't in your base set or the collection, so the value is visible without extra setup. - **Columns you don't map are kept, not lost.** Unmapped columns are preserved with the record and set aside under the artifact's import data, ready to promote to a real field later. The complete original record is always retained. Imports from sources with rich object metadata — such as the Cleveland Museum of Art — automatically fill matching Universal pack fields (provenance, inscriptions, measurements) when you've adopted them. Controlled terms like medium and technique stay in [Concepts](/docs/en-US/guides/subjects-concepts-and-authorities), never copied into a plain field. See [Import photos and metadata](/docs/en-US/guides/importing-photos) for the full import flow. ## Private fields Mark a field **Private** to keep it staff-only — valuations, donor details, storage locations. Private fields never appear in public responses and are hidden from contributor submission forms; staff see them with a badge. Valuation and location fields in the packs default to private. ## Required fields Mark a field **Required** to block saving an artifact until it has a value. The save is rejected with a message naming the missing fields.