[Dspace-general] Problem with losing DC qualifiers when editing metadata

[Brian Surratt]

All,

I have encountered a problem with DSpace and I wondered if anybody else
has experienced this.

We created two new DC elements in our registry for ETDs:
contributor.committee_member and contributor.committee_chair. The were
assigned dc_type_ids of 69 and 70, respectively. We batchloaded a
collection into a development instance of DSpace from our thesis office.
After the import, I began editing some of the names in these new
metadata fields. I notice that when I updated the metadata form for each
item, the contributor.committee_member and contributor.committee_chair
fields changed to unqulified contributor fields. It appears that the
dc_type_id changed to 1 for each of these fields. This happened for all
fields with dc_type_id of 69 or 70, even if I did not change the data in
the field. Hitting the "Update" button seemed to cause the change.

I have not noticed that this has happened with DC elements that are
native to DSpace.

If anyone can shed light on this situation, it would be much
appreciated.

Brian Surratt

Brian Surratt, MLIS
Metadata Coordinator
Digital Initiatives, Research and Technology
Texas A&M University Libraries
bsurratt at lib-gw.tamu.edu
(979) 845-5454