On Thu, 2007-07-05 at 16:03 +0100, James Rutherford wrote: > 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.
Actually, that poses an interesting question on the future of the handle system - it's not unreasonable to have urls / references that are *relative* to the resolution of a handle, so could there in the future be a way of passing additional information through to the URL resolved by the handle system resolver? (There is also another interesting theoretical question about the issues of only exporting *some* of the items identified under a given prefix, but I'll avoid that now). > 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. In general, I would agree that it isn't a problem if Bitstreams don't routinely get handles / persistent / external identifiers. As long as there are consistent internal identifiers, and a way of mapping a persistent / external identifier through metadata, then (in theory) you only need to choose to assign an identifier to the Bitstream's metadata, and you can guarantee it's persistence. Happily enough Jim, you've already been doing that ;) G This email has been scanned by Postini. For more information please visit http://www.postini.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ DSpace-tech mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-tech
