[Dspace-general] metadata questions

[Jim Downing]

Hi Gerson,

On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 09:29 +1030, Gerson Galang wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Does DSpace provide a functionality of automatically uploading files 
> into its repository? If it does not, has anybody on this list already 
> written an application which integrates with DSpace and implement this 
> functionality?

I've written a importer that grabs XHTML files from the web, extracts
the dc namespaces elements and uses the metadata from them. I know Scott
Yeadon's written a web GUI to the bulk importer, and I'd imagine there
are a few more similar initiatives. Best to ask on dspace-tech (copied
here). 

What exactly were you hoping to automate?

> I've also noticed that DSpace only uses the Dublin Core metadata schema 
> and doesn't give you an option to use your own schema. A work around for 
> this might be to extend the default Dublin Core schema by inputting 
> extra attributes that a collection or a file might need, but this still 
> has to be done manually. Is there a way to automate this process so that 
> users won't have to manually annotate files in the collection anymore?

The bulk importer takes in xml files with arbitrary metadata, but the
metadata fields still need to be manually configured by the
administrator. I don't know of anyone who's automated the expansion of
the metadata registry to accomodate imports.

> Are there any plans for DSpace to support other metadata schemas? Has 
> anybody written a Java API for DSpace which we can use if ever we decide 
> to write an application which will communicate with the server?

DSpace has a Java API that can be used locally, where 'locally' in this
context means that you can get a direct connection to the db and access
to the storage filesystem (which could be achieved through NFS as far as
I know). Are you specifically referring to a remote API?

jim

-- 
Jim Downing <ojd20 at cam.ac.uk>
DSpace at Cambridge