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Before accessing and using Islandora, it is important to learn how Islandora understands your content. Islandora leverages Fedora's Fedora’s flexible and powerful Digital Object Model, Relationships, and Content Model architecture. If you are familiar with these concepts, you may find this section repetitive. The following section borrows heavily from the Fedora documentation on this subject.
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Everything in Islandora's Islandora’s Fedora Repository is an "object“object," ” made up of "Datastreams“Datastreams." ” When using Islandora, there are several special kinds of objects that perform different functions. The major types of Islandora "objects" “objects” you will encounter are Content Model Objects, Collection Objects, and Data Objects.
Content Model Object - A Content Model Object is a "template" “template” for a particular type of content. Fedora has its own notion of a Content Model, which you can read more about here
Islandora extends Fedora's Fedora’s Content Model Architecture by envisioning an Islandora-specific Content Model, a content model with an ISLANDORACM Datastream. Think of a Content Model as a template or a recipe for data in your repository.
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Collection Object - For most purposes, the term "Collection Object" “Collection Object” can be understood as synonymous with the traditional concept of a collection. If you want to make a map collection in Islandora, you would start with a collection object that subscribes to the Map Content Model. Every data object you add to (ingest into) this collection would then be a member of that collection, because a relationship between that new data object and the collection object (the map collection) is written. Every instance of Islandora will have a root collection object. This collection object will subscribe to a "Collection" “Collection” Content Model, enabling collections to be created "under" “under” that object. All Collection objects will be affiliated with the Collection Content Model object, and that affiliation will define what types of Data Objects can belong to a Collection. That affiliation will be defined in one of the Datastreams of the collection object - the COLLECTION_POLICY stream.
Data Object - Here, the term "Data Object" “Data Object” refers to the actual assets being stored. So, one "map" “map” and its associated Datastreams (metadata, alternate image formats/sizes) is a "data “data object." ” The map object will have a number of different Datastreams. These Datastreams will tell the system where the main file is located, as well as any derivatives that are used for web-display, they will contain the bibliographic record (metadata) associated with that object, and they will indicate which collection (or collections!) the map belongs to.
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This can be confusing, since specialized "objects" “objects” and their specialized "Datastreams" “Datastreams” perform a number of different functions, and serve a number of different purposes. Datastreams store a reference to the binary file being stored (such as PDF, or an image), they declare the Content Model Object affiliations of an object, and they store the relationships that an object has to other objects in the repository. Each object in Islandora has a default DC Datastream. This Datastream is a Dublin Core record associated with this object. Islandora uses other metadata schemas, and crosswalks relevant data to the DC stream. For more information about how Islandora utilizes crosswalks, please review Chapter 14 - Descriptive Metadata and Islandora.
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Objects in Islandora have relationships to one another. These relationships are stored in a RELS-EXT Datastream in an object, which usually has the label "Fedora “Fedora Object-to-Object Relationship Metadata." ” This Datastream is written in RDF.
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Another way of understanding the PID is as the basis for your repository's repository’s Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) which uniquely identify items in your repository. To learn more about PIDs and PID namespace prefixes, visit Fedora Commons documentation; specifically, the section on Fedora Identifiers.
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You should see any collections that are installed as part of a Solution Pack, and they will appear with a default "icon" “icon” folder, or a thumbnail image. These tutorials assume that you have installed one or more Solution Packs. Please review Chapter 5 - Islandora Solution Packs if you are not sure if you have Solution Packs installed. If no solution packs are installed, you will not be able to create collections of content in Islandora.
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