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Packaging and shipping your content to the preservation archive

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After you have prepared your archival volume and electronic shipping manifest, you must send them to the Archive for Ingest processing. You can transfer the volume(s) over the Internet to the Archive’s ingest staging area.

 Note: We no longer support shipping with a portable storage device.

Transferring archival volumes over the internet

The Digital Archive supports online transfer of data from your local systems to your Ingest staging area in OCLC’s operations center.

Use this method: You can send up to 100GB per archival volume and you can send multiple volumes. You need access to an FTP client such as WinSCP or FileZilla. The following directions are based on the use of WinSCP.

Before you begin …Install WinSCP: Use your browser to navigate to http://www.winscp.net/download.php. Click the link to download and save the installation package, and then run the installer to add WinSCP to your system.

Steps for sending an archival volume to the Ingest staging area using WinSCP

  1. Use WinSCP to login to the Digital Archive secure FTP site.

    Open the WinSCP application and enter the host name associated with your OCLC file exchange account, plus your user name and password. Your user name is the D.A. Uploader ID listed in the Welcome e-mail.

    Screenshot of the WinSCP Login dialog

     Note: If this is the first time you’ve used WinSCP to access the server, you will be asked to verify the security certificate for this site. OCLC has registered each data center as a secure server with international Internet services, so it is OK to accept the certificate.

    Click Login, and you’ll see the home directory (usually named /xfer) for your Digital Archive account on the right side of the display, and your workstation’s local directories on the left side of the display.

    Screenshot of the WinSCP HomeDirectory dialog

  2. Change directories to the Ingest watcher directory.

    Before you upload a new archival volume you need to change directories to /xfer/archive/in/archive. The Ingest watcher is looking for archival volumes in the /xfer/archive/in/archive directory.

    Do this by double-clicking first, on the archive folder … Screenshot of double-clicking the archive folder 

    then, double-click on the in folder … Screenshot of double clicking the in folder

    finally, double-click on the archive folder … Screenshot of double clicking the archive folder for the second time

     

    You’ll end up in the /xfer/archive/in/archive (Ingest watcher directory)

    Screenshot highlighting the Ingester watcher directory

  3. Drag and drop your archival volume to the Ingest watcher directory.

    After you’ve switched to /xfer/archive/in/archive directory on the sftp server, you are ready to copy an archival volume into this location.

    Find an archival volume on your workstation that is ready to go and includes a manifest.txt file, e.g., Volume16 shown here.

    Screenshot highlighting an archival volume on a workstation

    Drag and drop the archival volume from your workstation to the Ingest watcher area.

    Screenshot highlighting dragging and dropping the archival volume from your workstation to the Ingest watcher area

  4. Trigger the Ingest watcher.

    Once the data transfer is complete you need to trigger the Ingest watcher. To trigger the Ingest watcher change the name of the archival volume to <name>.READY using the Files -> Rename command in WinSCP.

    Screenshot demonstrating how to trigger the Ingest watcher change the name of the archival volume to <name>.READY

    Remember to use ALL CAPS for the .READY .

    After a few minutes the file watcher will notice the .READY and start the Ingest.

    If all goes well, you’ll get an e-mail from the Digital Archive letting you know the success of the Ingest.