diff --git a/hsds/util/hdf5dtype.py b/hsds/util/hdf5dtype.py
index 564104e3..3d7d1d2f 100644
--- a/hsds/util/hdf5dtype.py
+++ b/hsds/util/hdf5dtype.py
@@ -37,7 +37,14 @@ def __init__(self, bind):
         self._objref = weakref.ref(bind)
 
     def __repr__(self):
-        return "<HDF5 object reference>"
+        # TBD: this is not consistent with hsds or h5py...
+        if not isinstance(self._id.id, str):
+            raise TypeError("Expected string id")
+        item = None
+
+        collection_type = self._id.collection_type
+        item = f"{collection_type}/{self._id.id}"
+        return item
 
     def tolist(self):
         if type(self._id.id) is not str:
diff --git a/hsds/util/idUtil.py b/hsds/util/idUtil.py
index 68639db3..fe21bbb0 100644
--- a/hsds/util/idUtil.py
+++ b/hsds/util/idUtil.py
@@ -155,7 +155,7 @@ def createObjId(obj_type, rootid=None):
         token = list(hashlib.sha256(salt.encode()).hexdigest())
 
         if rootid:
-            # replace first 16 chars of token with first 16 chars of rootid
+            # replace first 16 chars of token with first 16 chars of root id
             root_hex = getIdHexChars(rootid)
             token[0:16] = root_hex[0:16]
         else:
@@ -184,7 +184,7 @@ def getS3Key(id):
         "db/id[0:16]/d/id[16:32]/x_y_z
 
     For domain id's:
-        Return a key with the .domain suffix and no preceeding slash.
+        Return a key with the .domain suffix and no preceding slash.
         For non-default buckets, use the format: <bucket_name>/s3_key
         If the id has a storage specifier ("s3://", "file://", etc.)
         include that along with the bucket name. e.g.: "s3://mybucket/a_folder/a_file.h5"