BagIt Omeka Plugin

This plugin implements the BagIt 0.96 specification for creating and transmitting collections of files. The plugin adds an administrative interface that allows users to (a) generate and export Bags containing files on the site and (b) import already existing bags and make their content available through the Dropbox interface.

Requirements

The BagIt plugin requires the Archive_Tar php module.

Installation

1. Upload the BagIt plugin directory to the plugins directory of your Omeka installation. See the Installing a Plugin page for details.

2. Once it's uploaded and unzipped in the plugins directory, you may need to set the permissions on the BagIt/bagtmp directory to make it writable by everyone. (You can try installing and using the plugin without it, but if you get an error, come back here and try this.) Assuming Omeka is installed to /var/www/omeka, do this to change the permissions:

   chmod a+rw /var/www/omeka/plugins/BagIt/bagtmp

3. Go to the plugins management interface by clicking on the "Settings" tab at the top right of the administrative interface and selecting the "Plugins" tab.

4. Click the green "Install" button in the listing for the BagIt plugin.

Create Bags

The BagIt plugin lets you create and edit an indefinite number of "File Collections," arbitrary groupings of files that are native to the BagIt plugin and won't affect the presentation of association of the files elsewhere in Omeka. This makes it possible to assemble different combinations of files and export them as bags at any point.

To create a bag:

1. Click on the "BagIt" link in the main adminstrative menu along the top of the screen.

2. Before you can export a bag, you have to create at least one File Collection. Enter a name for the collection in the text box and click "Create Collection." By default, the exported bag will have the same name as the collection, but you can override this convention and enter a different name for the exported bag during the export workflow.

3. Click the "Add Files" button to associate files with the collection. This takes you to a listing of all of the files on the site. Select files that you want to add to the bag and click the "Update Bag" to save the changes. If you select files and then navigate to another page in the listings without clicking the update button, the selections will not be saved. Use the "Remove All Files" buttons to completely empty the bag of all files and the "Add All Files" to add all of the files on the site to the bag.

4. To delete a File Collection, click the red "Delete" button and confirm that you want to delete the collection.

5. To export the collection as a BagIt bag, you can either click directly on the "Create Bag" button in the file collections browser or click on the name of the collection, which takes you to a summary page that displays the files in the collection and allows you to remove unwanted files. Click on the "Create Bag" button to continue.

6. Enter a name for the exported bag file. By default, this is the name of the collection.

7. Click on the link to download the bag.

Read Bags

1. Click on the "Import a Bag" tab. In order to process the unpacked files, you need to have the Dropbox plugin installed and activated. If Dropbox is missing, you will see an error message.

2. Click the "Choose File," button select the bag file, and click the "Upload" button.