Error importing MODS XML

[elizabet...@mcgill.ca]

Hi,

We have recently installed AtoM 2.3.1 on a linux platform.

I'm trying to import a MODS XML file of name authorities using the Import XML function. The import is failing with "500 Internal Server Error" and the error in web log is: 

FastCGI sent in stderr: "PHP message: Unknown schema or import format: """ while reading response header from upstream, client: 132.206.197.107, server: qa-ams.library.mcgill.ca, request: "POST /index.php/object/import HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.atom.sock:" [...]

The MODS was generated from MARC using MarcEdit. I can confirm that the XML is well-formed and valid (validated using oXygen).  

Has anyone else encountered this issue ?  Can anyone provide samples of MODS XML files which are known to load ?

Many thanks for any light folks might be able to shed.

[Tim Hutchinson]

Hi Elizabeth,

Does your MODS file include the namespace attributes? I.e.:

<mods xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3" xmlns:mods="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">

With that in the XML, the import works for me in 2.3.

Or are you trying to validate against a different schema? This post reports the same error except for EAD: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/ica-atom-users/CzTim16kqfc/discussion

I should warn you that the MODS import (which we contributed to) was focused on the use case of importing records from Islandora, so the element set is quite limited. Names should import but it's possible there will be subelements or attributes that aren't accounted for in terms of more detailed authority records.

Tim

[Elizabeth Thomson]

Hello Tim,

Many thanks for the suggestion.  I successfully imported a single mods record using <mods> as the root element as per your suggestion. 

 

I was hoping to be able to import a set of records – the file I have uses <modsCollection> as the root element (with namespaces as per your suggestion), which seems to be causing the problem.  I’m curious to know how you imported records from Islandora.

 

Thanks again

[Dan Gillean]

Hi Elizabeth,

In case it is useful, I am attaching some resources which I used for some local testing - and I'll report back what I found in 2.3.1.

I have a file I often use for testing (attached below), which I consider a sort of "crosswalk" for AtoM's EAD XML 2002 implementation. Essentially, I have filled out all of AtoM's ISAD fields with the ISAD names, and then exported it as EAD.

I imported this into my 2.3.1 test instance, flipped the template to MODS, and then exported. Then I re-imported the resulting MODS XML as a new file.

The import completed successfully, but with many warnings, shown below:

​

It appears that some of the standardized MODS controlled vocabulary terms do not exactly match those that AtoM uses, which causes at least some of the warnings. In any case, some data is lost on both export (because there is no clear mapping from ISAD to MODS XML, or because AtoM has not yet implemented one) and on import, likely owing to the same reasons, and the warnings above.

Ultimately, this is the description I ended up with:


​

It is interesting to note that the dates and creators did not survive this roundtrip experiment. The dates and creator names were included in the export, so this suggests that AtoM's MODS import needs to be addressed.

I hope that this will at least help you perform your own tests, and get a better sense of how AtoM's MODS XML import/export is currently implemented. If you or your institution is interested in sponsoring bug fixes or enhancements to the current functionality, please feel free to contact me off-list.

Cheers,

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

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[Elizabeth Thomson]

Hello Dan,

Many thanks for these resources. They’ll be extremely useful to us. 

I now realize that I need to be looking at EAC rather than MODS when dealing with authorities.

 

Thanks !

 

From: Dan Gillean [mailto:d...@artefactual.com]

Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2017 12:29 PM
To: ICA-AtoM Users <ica-ato...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: Elizabeth Thomson <elizabet...@mcgill.ca>

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[Hutchinson, Tim]

Hi Elizabeth,

 

I’m pretty sure <modsCollection> is not supported. But you’d be able to do a batch import of any number of individual via the command line.

 

In terms of Islandora, we haven’t taken this into production yet, but we developed a custom module to batch export the MODS (more generally any datastream) from Islandora. It’s currently available in Islandora Labs:

https://github.com/Islandora-Labs/islandora_datastream_exporter

 

Tim

 

Tim Hutchinson
Head, University Archives & Special Collections
University Library, University of Saskatchewan

Tel: (306) 966-6028  Fax: (306) 966-6040

Email: tim.hut...@usask.ca

Web: http://library.usask.ca/archives/

[elizabet...@mcgill.ca]

Hi Tim,

Many thanks for the reminder about the command line option. I'll be sure to explore it.

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 13:13:09 UTC-4, Tim Hutchinson wrote:

Hi Elizabeth,

 

I’m pretty sure <modsCollection> is not supported. But you’d be able to do a batch import of any number of individual via the command line.

 

In terms of Islandora, we haven’t taken this into production yet, but we developed a custom module to batch export the MODS (more generally any datastream) from Islandora. It’s currently available in Islandora Labs:

https://github.com/Islandora-Labs/islandora_datastream_exporter

 

Tim

 

Tim Hutchinson
Head, University Archives & Special Collections
University Library, University of Saskatchewan

Tel: (306) 966-6028  Fax: (306) 966-6040

Email: tim.hut...@usask.ca

Web: http://library.usask.ca/archives/

 

From: Elizabeth Thomson [mailto:elizabet...@mcgill.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2017 10:20 AM
To: Hutchinson, Tim <tim.hut...@usask.ca>; AtoM Users <ica-ato...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: Error importing MODS XML

 

Hello Tim,

Many thanks for the suggestion.  I successfully imported a single mods record using <mods> as the root element as per your suggestion. 

 

I was hoping to be able to import a set of records – the file I have uses <modsCollection> as the root element (with namespaces as per your suggestion), which seems to be causing the problem.  I’m curious to know how you imported records from Islandora.

 

Thanks again