There is no right way to load a digital object into the database. Each business will have the digital objects stored in their own structure and the challenge is to work out where all the data is that relates to them. The following describes some of the situations that most businesses will encounter when they try to determine the loading methodology to use that best meets their business requirement.
The scenario is that not all digital objects yet exist, some need to be scanned in, and some need to be taken by a photographer. There is thorough metadata for all the digital objects. This is a scenario found in museums or other organizations, where they manage collections. In this case, the following rule applies:
Metadata: Master list of all objects
Digital object is attached to metadata
The metadata can exist in another database, in XML format, or CSV format. It is loaded in first, effectively becoming a relational record (as covered in Chapter...