Use of Google Cloud Storage for AtoM
89 views
Skip to first unread message
Miles Clemson
Aug 14, 2025, 12:58:07 PMAug 14
to AtoM Users
Hi all -
Our digital asset collection is stored on Google Drive Cloud storage. When trying to link an ATOM object to its digital picture file in this GDrive location, we have hit a bit of a brick wall.
GDrive uses URLs (https://....) to define and share location, whereas ATOM only seems to accept a server file path (UNC - \\\\ServerName\\ShareName\\FolderName).
We have tried using a GDrive URL to no avail.
Has anyone worked with a similar GDrive environment in combination with ATOM and managed to make it work?
Any help really appreciated!
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road
SE1 8XX London
Registered Charity No. 298909
Mario Villar
Aug 14, 2025, 1:47:29 PMAug 14
to AtoM Users
Dan Gillean
Aug 15, 2025, 10:50:19 AMAug 15
to ica-ato...@googlegroups.com
Hi Miles,
AtoM can link digital objects via URL and automatically generate local derivatives (i.e. lower-resolution access copy on the related description's viewpage; thumbnail for search and browse results), but ONLY when 3 conditions are met with the provided URL:
- There MUST NOT be any barriers to access - no "click to continue" or captchas requiring interaction, no password prompts or firewalls. The objects must be available on the public web
- The links provided MUST use HTTP or HTTPS - local share drive links, or FTP / SFTP links for example, will not work
- The links MUST end in the file extension of the target object - .e.g .jpg, .pdf, etc. Otherwise AtoM cannot identify the target object.
It is this third criteria why Drive links do not typically work - Google does not provide a link directly to the object, because it generates arbitrary permalinks that remain stable even if the object is moved to another location in the user's Drive. It is similar with YouTube videos for example - to prevent unauthorized downloads, YouTube does not provide a direct link to the MP4 (or AVI, etc) video file - instead they generate a unique abstract permalink to the video player page and only allow end users to access that.
This is mentioned in the admonition below step 5 in the documentation instructions found here:
Perhaps the solution that Mario provided might offer a workaround that can generate a URL that meets the 3 criteria.
Otherwise, you CAN add such a link anyway to AtoM and when clicked it will follow - but to properly display the target object metadata you'd need to manually edit that, and for derivatives you'd need to create and upload your own. See:
Keep in mind as well that if a system administrator ever ran the derivative regeneration command-line task, your hand-made derivatives would be lost, and would need to be manually created and reuploaded again as well!
Cheers,
he / him
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AtoM Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ica-atom-user...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ica-atom-users/bc23a9d5-8bee-4149-a9c3-e106f281868en%40googlegroups.com.
Miles Clemson
Sep 23, 2025, 7:36:20 AMSep 23
to AtoM Users
Hi all! Message from our IT team:
We followed the steps outlined, and we can link the object to Google Drive. When clicking the URL it takes us to the correct file which is visible to external users. The issue we have - it is not generating the thumbnail preview.
So the question we have - is it something we are doing incorrectly or is this expected/default behaviour? (for example because we are using GD)
Dan Gillean
Sep 23, 2025, 8:36:14 AMSep 23
to ica-ato...@googlegroups.com
Hi Miles,
Unless the instructions you followed in that Medium article also changed the types of links that GDrive provides, I suspect that this is expected behavior - please see my previous message in this thread about the 3 requirements for AtoM to generate derivatives from URLs. Typically Drive does not provide a URL that ends in the file extension of the object, so AtoM doesn't know what to grab.
You CAN create your own derivatives and upload them via AtoM's user interface, but 1) this is a LOT of manual work, and 2) if you ever run the derivative regeneration task as part of your system maintenance, you would lose all those manually uploads when AtoM attempts to follow the original links and generate replacement derivatives...
Your link didn't work and the screenshot also unfortunately didn't come through, but I believe in such cases AtoM should default to showing a generic icon instead - in the images directory (found in AtoM's root installation directory), there should be a subdirectory named generic-icons or similar where these generic icons are kept, and are used as fallbacks when AtoM can't properly generate derivatives. One option might be to replace these with a nicer / more instructive generic icon? I.e. use the iconic Southbank yellow, add your institutional logo, say "Click to view" or something...
Alternatively, rather than using Google Drive, use a server directory or a DAMS that can provide links that meet the criteria AtoM needs to automatically generate the derivatives. Unfortunately after doing a bit of searching about Drive and failing to find configuration change options, I can't think of too many more workarounds!
Cheers,
he / him
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ica-atom-users/c71c7da7-0293-4634-92f0-8e29fde8779cn%40googlegroups.com.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages