Hi Jill,

There's clearly a lot of OAI expertise here, but I'd like to offer that
OCLC's documentation for exports:
https://help.oclc.org/Metadata_Services/CONTENTdm/CONTENTdm_Administration/Collection_administration/090Export_metadata

... suggests that OAI is the wrong format for the task in front of you, and
that more than one of the other formats offers comprehensive exports of the
metadata and references to the archival files (a gap Wilhelmina identified
in her excellent post). If I can offer some advice: You have
two (relevant) vendor relationships right now. OCLC, which has a
responsibility for making the export available, and your new exhibition
vendor, which presumably has a contractual obligation to deal with the
exported data. I would point your new vendor at the ContentDM Standard XML
export data (per link above) and see if they can reconstitute your
recto/verso items accurately. If that doesn't work, I'd link them to the
ContentDM server API:
https://help.oclc.org/Metadata_Services/CONTENTdm/Advanced_website_customization/API_Reference/CONTENTdm_API/CONTENTdm_Server_API_Functions_-_dmwebservices

If the OCLC export is functional, then I would expect a museum-sector
vendor who took this contract to be able to reassemble your material. If
either (or both) of those clauses are not true, then you should hold the
relevant vendor to account!

Good luck with your migration.

- Ben

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 4:07 AM Jill Ellern <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Code4lib folks,
>
> I have perhaps some stupid OAI questions.  We are moving off Contentdm and
> onto a platform with programmers that I’m pretty sure don't know OAI and
> harvesting at all.  We  have been thinking that it would be simple to
> convert our output of metadata that comes in a text format.  However, we
> see now that it drops the set structure (front and back of an image for
> example) especially since we have some collections that have different
> titles for the container (root description) and the images attached.  We do
> see a line with cpd but with different titles, it look like we might have
> to identify sets in Excel.  That sounds like a big job and a pain.  I'm
> thinking there is a better way with OAI but I don't know much about it.
> My thinking is that we can use OAI to move this data instead of text
> files.  I'm sure it has the structure built in...doesn't it?  Is there a
> easy tutorial on OAI?  I’m not finding much for the layperson. And our new
> vendor is pretty new to library land (they are in museum land) and we doubt
> if they know OAI and I don't see easy ways to teach them.  Do you have
> suggestions?
>
> Jill Ellern
>
>