Prepare content for submission to the preservation archive without CONTENTdm

Create an archival volume

Archival volumes are the package in which your data is shipped to the Archive. Using archival volumes allows you to organize multiple files and ship them to the Archive for Ingest processing.

To create an archival volume you need a staging area, that is, space on a file system to create the archival volume directory and space within that directory to store files and create subdirectories.

There are two types of file structures you can create in the staging area for an archival volume: single directory structure or multi-level directory structure.

A single directory structure has all the files in a single archival volume directory in the staging area with no subdirectories. Example 1 shows six TIFF files within a single archival volume named Volume1 on a removable storage device being used as a staging area.

Example 1: Single directory structure on removable disk E:

A multi-level directory structure includes subdirectories within the archival volume in the staging area. Example 2 shows various subdirectories and files within an archival volume named VOL-20080103 on a removable storage device being used as a staging area.

Example 2: Multi-level directory structure on removable disk E:

Each file in an archival volume is tracked by your OCLC symbol, your institutional URL (without the http://), the Collection Name, the Archival Volume Name, and the File Name. You must add all of this information to the electronic shipping manifest prior to sending it to OCLC.

Creating an electronic shipping manifest

The electronic shipping manifest (manifest.txt) contains information identifying your institution and the list of files you are sending on the portable storage device. In addition, you provide information about how you want this content organized in the Archive and where to look in the directory structure of the portable storage device to find the archival volume with your content.

Note: If you are using CONTENTdm Project Client to create archival volumes, an electronic shipping manifest is created and stored in your archival volume automatically (see Prepare content for submission to the preservation archive using CONTENTdm).

There are six required data elements in the electronic shipping manifest:

• Institution – Your institution’s OCLC symbol.
• ServerURL – The full domain name of the server where corresponding access copies are kept (for example, cdm104301.cdmhost.com), or simply the web domain name of your institution (for example, www.columbia.edu).
• Collection – The name of the digital collection to which this content belongs.
• VolumeID – The archival volume name and also the directory name on the portable storage device where the content resides. The value of VolumeID should be unique within a collection. We recommend naming volumes with a date stamp (for example, VOL-20080301 for a volume created on March 1, 2008).
• ItemList – The file name of a content file within the archival volume. The file name should include a mime type extension (for example, .pdf or .tif. For archival volumes with a multi-level directory structure the file name should include the relative directory path of the file within the archival volume (see example 3 below).
• ItemTotal – The count of files within the archival volume. This should be equal to the number of occurrences of the ItemList element.

For archival volumes that have a single directory structure each ItemList element contains the name and mime type extension for each file submitted.

Example 3: Manifest file for a single directory structure archival volume (this is the type of archival volume created by CONTENTdm)

For archival volumes with a multi-directory structure each ItemList element contains the relative directory path of the file within the archival volume as well as the file name and mime type extension for each file submitted.

Example 4: Manifest file for a multi-directory structure archival volume

Name the electronic shipping manifest manifest.txt and place a copy of it inside the directory of the archival volume.

Example 5: Electronic shipping manifest inside the archival volume

Save a copy of the manifest for your records and e-mail a copy to OCLC at OCLC Support to notify us that you are shipping your content.