[Dspace-general] DSpace Bistream

[James Rutherford]

On Wed, Jul 04, 2007 at 01:13:38PM +0200, Ina Smith wrote:
> My question relates to the preservation of the bitstream URL: In stead
> of linking from another database (e.g. our library catalogue) to the
> Item URL, we would like to link directly to the Bitstream URL. Is
> there any guarantee that the Bitstream URL will also stay persistent
> if we decide to export our items to another server one day? We also
> use the CNRI Handle System.

The short answer is "no". Bitstreams don't get handles, so if you move
your DSpace having directly referenced a Bitstream URL, that link will
either break, or you will have to maintain it yourself (which is a bad
road to go down). Until this is fixed (and I should point out that not
everyone thinks it's a problem) you shouldn't use Bitstream URLs
anywhere unless you're prepared to deal with it when the time comes.

cheers,

Jim

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