Include Microfilm and Image number in download filename and/or download URL
My tip/improvement suggestion is basically in the title.
Using Library of Congress "Chronicling America" website as a real-world example, let's say I download a historical newspaper page from there as a .jp2 image. When that file downloads to my hard drive, the publication AND publication-date are both identifiable in the filename. In addition, this same information replicates in the metadata within this file, because this text is apparent in the download path URL.
The beauty of this redundancy is that I have a way to correct errors when I re-name files. Say I intended to write "18960815_Portland Daily Press_p3" but made an error. I could fix that error by looking in the metadata.
My example is sort of a bad one, above, because obviously I could also just open the file and read the masthead for the publication name, date and page number. On FamilySearch, the struggle becomes more real if I forget to properly name a digital file and/or put that file where it belongs. Say I forgot to do BOTH of these things. What I am left with, is the following:
- Filename: "record-image_undefined.jpg"
- URL (in the metadata): https://familysearch.org/das/v2/3:1:3Q9M-C9Y5-37V7/dist.jpg?ctx=CrxCtxPublicAccess&header=Content-Disposition&headerValue=attachment; filename=record-image_undefined.jpg
That URL will indeed re-download the image (if I'm logged-in to FS), but it won't get me any closer to identifying what record group it came from. If microfilm number and image number were in there somewhere, I could however figure it out by doing a search in the FS catalog.
There's my suggestion. Thanks for listening. Cheers!