Partial updates or additions

[bb233]

A large collection of digitized material is being generated, with the desire to archive it as it goes. The archivist wishes to add new files and update existing files without having the entire collection on hand at once. The OCFL client should be able create new versions of an object based solely on the updates and additions.

[ahankinson]

Do you imagine that every time the archivist finishes a 'session' (however that is defined) and save the object that this creates a new version? So if they do pages 1-100 on one day, then add pages 101-200 on the second day, that would create two versions?

[bb233]

Yes.

In the context of, say, an archiving on an ongoing video lecture series, added to the archive once a year, I would expect the /v0001 directory in the OCFL object to contain the 2015 lectures, the /v0002 directory to contain the 2016 lectures, etc, but the members of version #v0002 would contain both lecture years.

The purpose of this use case is that, when adding the 2016 lectures to the archive (in a new version), the archivist doesn't have to have onhand the 2015 lectures. In an extreme case, the archivist might not have enough working storage for an entire version of the archive at once.

[ahankinson]

F2F 2018.09.05: Versioning is supported, but OCFL will be agnostic about the contents of the archive.

[zimeon]

I note that one wouldn't usually have different/growing intellectual content in an object, the use case above of 2015 and 2016 lecture would likely best be supported by having a new object each year.