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Overview

Welcome to the Preassembly Application!

For users of the application, please consult the user documentation listed in the sidebar.

Preassembly refers to the process of submitting content (files) to the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR) so that the files then get shaped into a structured digital object (such as a "book" or "image") via a process known locally as "Assembly" - hence the name, Preassembly. Preassembly jobs process content (files) and structure ("image", "book", etc.) only; to update descriptive metadata, please use Argo.

To accession files into the SDR using Preassembly, you must first copy the files to one of a set of specific "staging" locations internal to the library's systems. The Preassembly application does not currently support direct file uploads via the web. Instead, it takes files from the location where they have been staged and copies them into the SDR. This makes it possible for Preassembly to support both smaller accessioning jobs and larger batches of over 1000 objects and/or over 1 TB of data.

Once a Preassembly batch has been staged and prepared for accessioning, the actual accessioning process is initiated via the Preassembly web application. Users fill out a brief web form where they specify the location of the files to be accessioned (the "staging" location) and the type of content to be accessioned ("book", "image", etc.).

The application supports two related but distinct types of job:

• Discovery Report Job
  • Discovery reports analyze the batch of files to be accessioned and check for possible errors such as empty files or mistyped druids.
• Preassembly Job
  • Preassembly jobs start the actual accessioning process. Generally, a Preassembly job should only be run following a successful discovery report for that same batch.

Once submitted via the web form, the job will run on its own and send you an email when it's complete. If a Preassembly job partially executes and fails, it can usually be "restarted": the successfully processed objects will not be reprocessed and the job will pick up where it left off.

Preassembly can be run multiple times for the same item. If you need to modify the content for an item that has already been accessioned, you can run Preassembly on that object again. The only requirement for Preassembly to start is that an object have a status of "Registered" or "Accessioned" before running the Preassembly job.