Frequently asked questions¶
Questions and answers concerning the siptools-ng.
For questions regarding the digital preservation service as a whole, see the FAQ section on the official site (in Finnish).
My SIP was rejected due to a missing dmdSec section in mets.xml. What do I need to do?¶
The national METS schema requires a dmdSec section in the METS schema. This means you need to add descriptive metadata to your SIP.
See 3. Add descriptive metadata for details.
The files have wrong technical metadata! How can I ensure they’re correct?¶
You can give siptools_ng.file.File.generate_technical_metadata() additional parameters
to ensure file-scraper generates the correct technical metadata.
See Generating technical metadata for more details.
I want to check or modify the METS document. Can I do that?¶
Yes, the METS object is accessible through the siptools_ng.sip.SIP.mets property.
Please check mets_builder.mets.METS for available methods and properties.
Most functionality under METS can be used, although it’s not advised to add digital objects manually as they won’t be tracked by siptools-ng.
What is dpres-siptools? Why should I use dpres-siptools-ng instead of dpres-siptools?¶
dpres-siptools is the command-line toolset for creating SIPs. dpres-siptools is deprecated and has been replaced with dpres-siptools-ng.
dpres-siptools was designed around a set of command-line tools meant to be executed in a predetermined sequence. This approach came with various drawbacks:
Commands have to be executed in a rigid order
There is no way to inspect the incomplete SIP before creating the final SIP file
dpres-siptools relies on state files stored on disk and numerous command calls, which made it scale poorly on larger SIPs
The Python API was implemented after the fact in an ad-hoc manner around the command-line tools themselves and was rigid in much the same way
dpres-siptools-ng was implemented from scratch and designed around an object-oriented API and a class hierarchy that resembles the final SIP and its contents.
While dpres-siptools-ng does not currently provide a command-line toolset like dpres-siptools, one can be implemented if there is demand for it.