[Dspace-general] creating web presentations using dspace content

[Larry Stone]

> Of course this is just part of the problem.  The real problem is that
> the structural metadata you need has to be in DSpace in the first place!
> There's currently no place for that 'understood' by DSpace.  So you have

We have a similar problewm in the CWSpace project, since we'll want to
mark an IMSCP manifest as a metadata bitstream within a DSpace item.

I think it would be most helpful to implement the foundation of an AIP
model in DSpace 1.3.x, by making a fixed place for the METS metadata
bitstream.  The METS can identify any other bitstreams which are
actually metadata by putting them in "mdRef" references in e.g.
mets.amdSec.sourceMD.  The license bitstream(s), and any other metadata,
could be referenced in the METS as well.

> - Put METS or DIDL with the relevant information as a bitstream in
> DSpace alongside the bitstreams in an item.  Then your app would need to
> know which bitstream is the METS/DIDL (as opposed to the content).
> Plus, you'd need a convenient way of creating that METS/DIDL in the
> first place.

Yeah, we'd need to resolve a couple of issues first:

  1. Formalize some method of assigning persistent identifiers to bitstreams
     so there is a robust way to refer to them from the METS file.

  2. Come up with a consistent way to identify the bitstream with the METS.
     Giving it a "magic" name like "mets.xml" is too fragile,
     since bitstream names are weakly bound and can be duplicated.
     Maybe a DC field (relation.something) with the bitstream ID?

I'm interested in implementing this when we can agree on it.  We could
add methods to the Item class to manage the METS document, the same way it
handles DC fields.

    -- Larry