PANDAS Manual

Gathering Titles

You can gather a site immediately and you can also set a schedule to gather a site either at regular intervals (e.g. monthly, quarterly, annual) or on dates that you specify.

Before gathering a title you should ensure that the basic management details for the title are up-to-date. For example, if you are about to gather a title its Status should be set at "National Preservation" and the Standing should be set at "current".

Procedures covered in this section include:

• Basic gathering procedures
• Specifying gather filters
• Additonal and advanced gather settings

Basic Gathering Procedures

1. Search for the title you wish to gather
2. Click on the title to go to the Title View screen.
3. Take ownership of the title via the Advanced dropdown menu if you do not already own it.
4. Click on Gather Details from the Menu Bar. You will be taken to the Edit Gather Settings screen, Basic tab window.
   
   
5. On the Basic tab window specify the URL in the URL to gather field. This is the starting URL for the gather process. This will default from the publisher's URL you have already entered when creating the title record (and which provides the link to the publisher's site on the title entry page). The gathering URL, however, may be different from the publisher's URL (if for example you want to gather only one specific section of the publisher's site). Changing the gathering URL will not change the original publisher's URL as entered in the Title record on the screen.
   
   
6. Select the gather Method from the drop-down list. Options are:
   

   Gathered (For gathering from the publishers website.)
   Publisher Supplied - normal (For titles that the publisher supplies by FTP, CD or ZIP disk.)
   Publisher Supplied - email (For titles that the publisher supplies by email.)

7. Select the gather Schedule from the drop-down list. If the title is only to be gathered once, select the option Never (i.e. meaning that it will not be scheduled to be regathered.)
8. If you want to request the title to be gathered on specific dates (either instead of or in addition to a gather schedule) enter the date in the Non-Scheduled Dates box and click the Add button. Repeat to set more than one date. These gather dates can be removed by highlighting the date in the list and clicking the Remove button.
9. Enter a start date for the gather schedule in the boxes labelled Start Date. In this section of the screen you will also find when the title was last gathered and the next scheduled gather date.
10. If the title you wish to gather does not require filters or other functions click on the Save button. If you need to set gather filters to include or exclude directories and/or files from the gather, see the section on gather filters below.
11. If you want to gather the title straight away (whether it is for a one off gather or if you have set a schedule) click the Gather on save check box then click Save. This will initiate the gather process.

Gather Filters

For many of the gathers you undertake you will not need to specify URL gather filters as the default settings will be sufficient. Default settings include gathering all html files in the starting directory and all sub-directories of the starting directory. Also, all media files such as images and sound files will be gathered wherever they are located. If you need to gather files not included by the default settings or if you need to exclude certain files or directories, you will need to set gather filters.

To specify gather filters click on the Filters tab on the Edit Gather Detailsscreen. This will display an edit window in which you can set your URL gather filter rules.

To create a gather filter:

1. Select a rule from the Rule drop-down box. The rules generally indicate that a file, folder or link will contain a character string that you specifiy; or it may indicate files with an extension that you specify
2. Specify the character string that you want included in your URL rule (e.g. a word, file extension, or just a string of letters or numbers)
3. Click the Inc. Link(s) button if you want the the filter to include the links you have specified in the gathering; or click the Exc. Link(s) button if you want the filter to exclude the links you have specified from the gathering
4. Repeat 1 to 3 to add more filters
5. The filter rules will appear in the Filter List box.
6. Click the Save button to save the gather settings (except if you want to gather the title immediately then you'll need to go back to the Basic tab window and click on the Gather on save check box, and then click the Save button

Additonal and Advanced Gather Settings

The Settings tab window on the Edit Gather Details screen allows you set additional gathering specifications.


Settings options include:

• Changing the Directory travel from the default "Can go down" (i.e. will gather sub-directories of the starting directory) to other options inlcuding staying on the same directory, going up, or going up and down.
• Changing the Host travel setting from the default "Stay on the same address".
• Specifiying a maximum depth. Enter a number in the Maximum depth box. This is useful if you are unable to specify URL filters to adequately limit your archiving. For example if you have a starting page and only want to gather files linked directly from that page but not go any further (i.e. following links from the subsequent pages even though they may be allowable within filter rules) you could specify a maximum gather depth of 2 (a depth of 2 means one click from the starting page; a depth of 3 means 2 clicks from the starting page etc.).
• If the site you are archiving requires a login and password, enter them in the boxes provided and click on the Password Settings check box.
• You can add additional URLs to gather in addition to the starting URL you have specified.
• You can add free text notes to explain the gather settings you have made for future reference.

Advanced Settings

For expert users there is an Advanced tab window available which includes advanced gather settings. To activate this window click on the Advanced Settings check box on the Basic tab. Click on the Advance tab to edit the advanced settings (PANDORA IT support staff can help with this level of gathering if required).

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Last updated 11 June 2002