Question about entities & migration to 8

[Baer,Helen]

Hello DSpace friends,

We are on DSpace 7.6.2, and we're not using entities. I seem to recall hearing that entities would be required at some point, perhaps for 9. Is this true?

I have read the documentation about entities for 8, and I have a basic understanding of how to implement entities using the dspace.entity.type metadata field, which we could use with one of the two default entity models, or configure locally (I suspect the former). We're trying to get a grip on how much work this would be if entities are required in the future.

Best,

Helen

Helen Baer

Digital Projects Librarian and Associate Professor

Morgan Library

Colorado State University

Fort Collins, CO 80523-1019

Phone: 970-491-5934

[DSpace Community]

Hi Helen,

At this time, Entities are still optional in all DSpace releases.  They may eventually become required, but they are not required in version 8 or (the upcoming) version 9.

If or when they do become required, we'd list that change in the Release Notes (in the "Breaking Changes" section).  See the Release Notes for DSpace 8 for example: https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/DSDOC8x/Release+Notes

All that said, you are still welcome to try out Entities if you wish.  Entities can be used *alongside* generic Items (there is no requirement to migrate everything to entities if you turn them on).  It's also worth noting that generic Items are equivalent to "Publication" entities.  But, when you turn on Entities, it provides you with new types of Items which can represent Person, Project, OrgUnit and the Journal hierarchy (Journal, Volume, Issue).

I hope that clarifies things.  If anything about this were to change in the future, we'd publish it in the Release Notes of that release.  But, as I said, there are no changes to Entities in DSpace 8 or 9. 

Tim

[Reed, Marianne A.]

Good afternoon!  I am using DSpace 7.6.2.  In the repository, I have a Collection that consists of audio recordings, sometimes with supplemental documents, that have never had thumbnails beyond the generic audio icon that we used in the past.  The collection manager is hoping to enhance the collection by adding thumbnail images that indicate the county of Kansas or Missouri where each recording was made.  They added a Thumbnail bitstream manually to each record.  

 

These uploaded thumbnails can be seen on any Apple device/browser that I have tested.  They can be seen in the list of items in the collection, in the item record display, and when looking at the Bitstream entry for the file. 

 

On any Windows or Android browser that I have tested – Windows (Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge) and Android (Opera and Samsung Internet)—they don’t display.  Instead of thumbnails, I see No Thumbnail Available errors.    I can see all of the thumbnails in the rest of the repository, so there is not something inherently wrong with my browser rendering images, but not in these records.  (Please see attached file for screenshots.) 

 

I have tried shrinking the resolution of the thumbnails, but it doesn’t fix the problem. 

 

Is anyone else seeing this behavior for thumbnails that were manually added and not auto-generated?  Thoughts about what might be going on? 

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

Marianne

 

Marianne Reed (she/her/hers)

Digital Publishing & Repository Manager

Watson Library, Room 470-G

University of Kansas Libraries

mr...@ku.edu

785-864-8913

 

 

 

 

 

[Baer,Helen]

Many thanks Tim — this is just what I needed to know.

Out of curiosity, if we were to turn on entities but not provide values in dspace.entity.type for existing records, would they automatically become publications, or would we still have to add the "Publication" value?

Best,

Helen

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From: DSpace Community
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2025 1:28 PM
To: DSpace Community
Subject: [dspace-community] Re: Question about entities & migration to 8

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[DSpace Community]

Hi Helen,

To clarify, if you turn on Entities then existing records would remain generic Items (as they already are).  That said, you could transform them into Publication entities by just setting "dspace.entity.type=Publication".   Essentially, Items and Publications are nearly the same object...the only difference is that "dspace.entity.type" field value.  Once you set "dspace.entity.type" to "Publication" then a normal Item will become a Publication Entity.  Removing that value will turn it back into a normal Item.

In DSpace itself, generic Items and Publications look/act essentially the same in most of the User Interface.  The only real difference is that Publications can be linked (via a relationship) to other Entities (like Person, OrgUnit or similar), while generic Items cannot.

Tim

[Reed, Marianne A.]

Good morning!   I was wondering if DSpace administrators have any control over what information is included when the social media icons are clicked in an item record in DSpace 7.6.x? Or if we can choose whether the icons are displayed at all?

 

One of my colleagues noticed that each plugin behaves very differently from the other in what is included and sometimes they don’t seem to include information that would be useful in finding the item that is being posted, so I thought that I’d ask. 

 

Thank you! 

 

-- Marianne

[Baer,Helen]

Got it -- thanks again for explaining this so clearly!

Helen

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From: DSpace Community
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2025 1:31 PM
To: DSpace Community
Subject: Re: [dspace-community] Re: Question about entities & migration to 8

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dspace-community/dd2d9e51-f3b9-4c2c-be80-8a154b95cf5cn%40googlegroups.com.