When CRRA members are not able or do not want to make their metadata available their own website, we hear at Catholic Portal Central will create one for them. To begin the process, a CRRA member simply needs to express this desire with me, Eric Lease Morgan (574/631-8604; [email protected]), and we will go from there.  

I will then assign the member a username/password combination. I will use various techniques to discover the member's IP address. Once done, the local FTP application configuration will be updated.

Members are expected to keep the username/password combination to themselves and not share it with friends and colleagues. Members are then expected to identify an FTP program for their person use. Both Windows and Macintosh computers come with terminal applications, and through them FTP clients are accessible.

The basic procedure for copying something to the dropbox is:

1. launch your local FTP client
2. open an FTP (not SFTP) connection to crradrop.library.nd.edu
3. log in with your username/password combination
4. "put" or "mput" your metadata in the default directory
5. close the connection
6. quit your FTP program

Every time content is put to the dropbox, members are expected to update their entire holdings. In other words, there ought to be only one set of MARC records in the directory -- a complete set of the MARC records to be indexed. Similarly, all of the EAD (.xml) files in the directory should represent the totality of EAD files to be indexed.

Once the metadata has been saved to the dropbox, Eric will then be able to harvest it, index it, and make it available via the Portal.