[Dspace-general] Import metadata without items

[Marvin Weaver]

I crosslisted this in both general and technical as I don't know which 
it really belongs to.

We are planning to develop a Dspace repository for our faculty 
publications.  Initially, all we will have is the metadata.  The plan is 
to use grad assistants to acquire pdfs and  research the rights for each 
article or object and add these to the repository.  The metadata is to 
be extracted from several databases and  imjested into Dspace so we at 
least have a complete bibliography in one place.

Should a standard pdf, e.g., "No pdf available at this time" be added as 
the bitstream object at time of creation so a handle can be created and 
reserved or should the metadata be imported with no object and the 
object and handle be created when the object becomes available?  Or is 
there another way to handle this situation?

Thank you
Marvin Weaver
Saint Joseph's University
Philadelphia, PA 19004