05. Ingest into Archivematica

Initiate process

This is the beginning of the workflow. It is assumed that users have gathered audiovisual files that they seek to prepare for long-term preservation in Archivematica and access in Avalon and are ready to begin the process.

Users prepare Avalon manifests and assets

The next step for users is preparing files for ingest. Ideally digital objects are ingested in Archivematica one Item at a time, which can contain multiple files. Files should, if not already, be arranged into folders at the Item level and an appropriate Avalon-compliant Manifest should be created. This Manifest will later be used to add metadata and create a hierarchical or relationship structure for Items when ingested into Avalon. It is recommended that this Manifest is saved as a CSV file. See below for an example of how each folder should be structured.

Sample Folder

Each Item should sit in a flat hierarchy inside of a folder suitable for ingest. As Items can contain more than one media object, each object should exist in the same folder. The folder should also contain a Manifest for use in Avalon.

FolderContainingContent
├── assets
│   ├── file2.mp4
│   ├── file3.mp4
│   └── file.mp4
└── manifest.csv

File naming conventions

To arrange materials downstream, when Archivematica and Avalon connect to each other, the Transfer Name in Archivematica should be the same as the desired Collection to be output. A unique identifier will be minted by Archivematica.

The Collection here should represent the intended Avalon collection name; more specifically, the name of the Avalon collection’s dropbox directory. This serves to make explicit the collection into which the material will be ingested, as Collection names may not be unique, but Collection dropbox directories names are. When a Collection is created, a corresponding directory is created with a sanitized name and certain characters (\\/ &:.?) are replaced with underscores for file system convenience. 

Archivematica will mint a unique identifier for each file early on in the process as a transfer-level UUID (a 128-bit number used to identify information in computer systems), and that identifier will be incorporated within the Manifest file prior to ingest into Avalon.

Copy to  ‘Transfer Source’ location

Files prepared for ingest should be moved to the specified transfer source location. This will likely be a specific server space set up by the institution and may be accessed by dragging-and-dropping files into a mounted drive or a remote server space that can be accessed by an SFTP client such as FileZilla or Cyberduck, or transferred via the command line.

Transfer Source

Files are then stored in the transfer source, which can be thought of as a staging location for all files waiting to be processed through Archivematica and have been prepared for long term storage and access copy deposit into Avalon. This transfer source will be connected to Archivematica, and files can be discovered via the Archivematica dashboard.

Archivematica transfer and ingest initiation 

This step can be initiated via automation_tools or manually via the Archivematica dashboard, depending on how Archivematica is configured and the level of control users seek in the process. This begins the process of creating submission information packages (SIPs) and, later, archival packages (AIPs).