DSpace Connector: Clarifying Questions about Usage

Omeka S
1

Hello,
I am in the process of completing an Omeka-S set up started by someone else in spring. We just activated the DSpace Connector and I did a test batch of 10 records. Before I go any further, I had a few general questions.

I understand that the DSpace Connector:
• IMPORTS metadata into our Omeka-S site.
• Can update items (synch data) to items in Omeka-S that were previously created by a DSpace Connector import.
• Includes a link to the DSpace which is handy.

BACKGROUND:
• We have 5,000 items in Omeka-S that were created/input in spring 2018.
• A portion of these 5,000 items (maybe 500) are already in our DSpace repository.
• I reviewed the test import that DSpace Connector did and saw that a duplicate item was created for the same file. We already had an item created in Spring, and the DSpace Connector created a new one.

LINKS to ITEMS [I’m a new user so can only add 2 links]
Omeka-S item created in Spring: http://beta.coda.coloredconventions.org/s/CoDA/item/5055
Omeka-S item create today with DSpace Connector: http://beta.coda.coloredconventions.org/s/CoDA/item/7123

QUESTION 1: The intention of DSpace Connector is to create NEW items to populate the Omeka-S database, is that correct? These new items can later be synched/update as needed.

QUESTION 2: We don’t want to import records from DSpace into Omeka-S if an item already exists for that file, is that correct?

QUESTION 3: Is there anything else key that I am missing about using the DSpace Connector?

Thanks for any and all insights!
Lauren Cooper

2

Are those two links supposed to be duplicates of each other? They don’t look like it to me.

I think your background is right: The DSpace Connector is designed to import each item only once, not duplicate when “re-importing.”

3

Thanks for the reply. I apologize: the first URL is incorrect. The two URLs to compare are:
http://beta.coda.coloredconventions.org/s/CoDA/item/444
http://beta.coda.coloredconventions.org/s/CoDA/item/7123

The two links reference the same document. The item 444 was manually created in Omeka-S. The item 7123 was automatically created with the DSpace Connector. They have varying metadata fields.

My main concern is that if we use the DSpace Connector, we risk creating duplicate Item Pages like above. If that is case, then I think we are past the point of using DSpace Connector for its intended use. I am trying to confirm if this is the case.

Thanks!

4

The DSpace Connector is designed to avoid duplicates and do updates of items it created itself. If you have manually created items for some things, it won’t be able to tell which are “duplicates” of things it’s seeing for the first time.

Unless the set of “manual” items is either small enough that it could just be eliminated, or distinct in some way such that you can simply choose to not import that set of records from DSpace, I think you may be correct that the connector won’t work well for you.