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OASIS Batch Loader Instructions

Follow these instructions to transfer a finding aid to OASIS by secure FTP (SFTP). The batch loader is a good choice when you need to upload multiple finding aids together, or when uploading a large finding aid that is over 1 MB in size. Consider using the OASIS Interactive Loader if you have just one finding aid to upload and it is under 1MB in size.

The OASIS batch loader processes deposited finding aids overnight Monday through Saturday. A Loader Report will be sent by email to the OASIS liaison when the deposit has been processed. Finding aids that are processed successfully can be viewed/searched in the OASIS catalog the day after deposit.

Deposit procedure
Loader reports
Viewing the finding aid

Deposit procedure

Before you deposit a finding aid, be absolutely sure that:

Here is the deposit procedure:

  1. Connect to dropbox.hul.harvard.edu. Note that a secure FTP client is required.
  2. Supply the SFTP login name and password for the production (or test) dropbox. Contact OASIS support in OIS if you need this login.
  3. Transfer your finding aids over to the incoming/ directory. File transfer mode must be ASCII and not binary. Make sure the target file is named using the standard format "xxxnnnnn.xml " (xxx = your library's LOC code, and nnnnn is the sequential number assigned to the finding aid).
  4. Repeat the procedure as often as necessary to transfer all of your new/updated finding aids, then close your SFTP session.
  5. Deposits are processed overnight Monday through Saturday. A Loader Report will be sent by email to the OASIS liaison when the deposit has been processed.
  6. Finding aids that are processed successfully can be viewed in OASIS the day after deposit. Finding aids that fail processing are not loaded.

When a finding aid is processed and loaded, the corresponding deposit file is deleted from the FTP dropbox.

When a finding aid fails processing, it is not loaded and the corresponding deposit file is left in the dropbox. It is important that the depositor connect to the drop box and delete or replace the file that failed processing. Otherwise, OASIS will try to load the bad finding aid again the next night, and the night after that, etc.

Contact OASIS support if you received a successful Loader Report but your finding aid is not viewable in OASIS.

Loader Reports

Once the nightly load process completes, a Loader Report is sent by email to the OASIS liaison for each contributing repository. This report provides the status of each finding aid for that repository in the load. The subject line of the email message will start with "OASIS-qa Loader Report" (for OASIS test) or "OASIS-prod Loader Report" (for OASIS production). A "Status OK" at the end of the subject line indicates all finding aids in the batch were loaded successfully. A "Status Error" at the end of the subject line indicates that one or more finding aids in the batch were not loaded because of an error.

For finding aids processed successfully, the Loader Report provides the file name, EADID, title, and a load status message. Here is a report for a newly added finding aid that was successfully processed:

Loading: hou01778.xml
Normalized eadid from: ---hou01778 --- to: --hou01778--
Normalized title from:
---Copland, Aaron, 1900-. Transcripts for Music in the 20s (MS Am 2377): Guide. ---
to:
--Copland, Aaron, 1900-. Transcripts for Music in the 20s (MS Am 2377): Guide.--
The record was added.
URN created: urn-3:FHCL.Hough:hou01778
Loading time:2.63 sec

For finding aids that fail processing, the Loader Report provides the file name, a brief explanation of the error and its location in the document, and the error text. Here is an excerpt from a report of a finding aid that failed:

Loading: hou01531.xmlError on line 23 of document file:///home/oasis/qa/loader/incoming/hou01531.xml: The entity "sacute" was referenced, but not declared. org.jdom.input.JDOMParseException: Error on line 23 of document file:///home/oasis/qa/loader/incoming/hou01531.xml: The entity "sacute" was referenced, but not declared.
at org.jdom.input.SAXBuilder.build(SAXBuilder.java:377)
at .....

Viewing the finding aid

Finding aids submitted by SFTP are processed overnight (Monday to Saturday) and available in OASIS the next day. To view the finding aid, just connect to the OASIS catalog and search for the finding aid. Note that the new finding aid will not be available in the OASIS Browse function until the second day after upload.

URL to production OASIS: http://oasis.harvard.edu/
URL to test OASIS: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL:oasis-qa