Bulk Item Upload

General Directions

Do you have a large number of files that you would like to upload? Or do you have very large files that you can't upload through the browser interface? Rather than adding your items one at a time through the browser, Omeka has an alternate way to upload multiple items more efficiently. How it works:

(a) Create all of your digitized files (pdfs, jpgs, etc.) and share them with Eva Guggemos, the Pacific U. Archivist.

(b) Create descriptions of all your items in a spreadsheet following the template below, save it as a ".csv" file, and share it with Eva.

(c) Eva will upload all your files to the server at once using SFTP, and she will use a tool built into Omeka to upload the CSV file. One item record per row in your spreadsheet will be created, matching the description up with the file.

File Preparation

Digitize a group of material following our Digitization Guidelines.
Make sure that all the files are named according to our File Naming Rules.
Create a folder with all your upload files.
Share the folder with Eva Guggemos, guggemos@pacificu.edu. You can share the folder through the cloud using Google Drive or DropBox, or you can deliver a physical drive; whatever is most convenient.

Create Descriptions in a Spreadsheet

1. Open Excel (or another spreadsheet app). In the first row, type the names of each item property just as they appear here.

2. In the last column of the top row, add Sideload.

3. Fill out one row per item, following our Description Rules for each column. Enter the folder name (if needed) and file name into the Sideload column.

In this example, the file cows.jpg is located in folder upload1

4. If an item has a property with multiple values (for example, multiple subjects) place them in the same cell with a multivalue separator, the "pipe" character: |

Every time the separator | appears, Omeka will interpret it as a break between two values.
CSV file:Subject: cows|animals|barn
Omeka display:Subject: cowsanimalsbarn
You can use this to separate files too.upload1/cows.jpg|upload1/cows2.jpg would attach two files (cows and cows2) to this item.

5. Save the sheet as a '.csv' (comma delimited value) file.

The CSV file format is a super-simple text file, which strips out all formatting so that the text can be easily ingested into a database. Each row in your CSV file will become one item record in Omeka. It's important not to have any line breaks or hard returns in your spreadsheet, because in the CSV file this will create a new 'line' and Omeka will interpret this as starting a new item. If you're having trouble with your CSV files, ask Eva for help.

6. Send the .csv file to Eva Guggemos, guggemos@pacificu.edu

Once Eva has your digitized files and a clean .csv file describing them, we can upload the items in bulk.

Omeka Upload

Note: You must have a site admin account to do bulk item uploads using the CSV Import Tool below. As of this writing (6/2019), only two people have this level of access: Eva Guggemos, Pacific U. Archivist; and Laura Eiford, Pacific U. Systems Librarian. If you need to do a lot of bulk uploads, feel free to contact us about the possibility of getting trained on the CSV Import Tool process below! The SFTP process which uploads the files requires server access, which must be restricted to Pacific U. staff.

1. Log in at https://heritage.lib.pacificu.edu/login

2. On the left navigation bar, select CSV Import.

3. Choose your file (ending in .csv) and hit Next.

4. Select an Item Set.

Tip: If you're adding to an item set, create a new item set for the upload. When you're done, you can do a bulk item edit to change all the items to the final item set. This way, if the import doesn't go as planned, you can quickly remove all the items you added.

4. Select an Multivalue separator.

This should be a unique character; we recommend using a pipe: | . Every time the separator appears, Omeka will interpret it as a break between two values.
CSV file:Subject: cows|animals|barn
Omeka display:Subject: cowsanimalsbarn

5. Click the Map to Omeka S data tab.

6. For each header, click the Properties button and select a property.

If the property has multiple values, click the Use multivalue separator button.

You are telling Omeka where to put the data from each spreadsheet column. If you assign the Title column to property Description all the data in the Title column will display as a Description in Omeka.
Any unmapped columns will not be saved in Omeka.

6. For the Sideload column, click the Media import button. Select the Sideload option and Use multivalue separator.

7. When all the properties are mapped, click the Import button (upper right). Depending on the number and size of the files, your import may take some time to load.

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