File Delivery Service (FDS)

Owned by Julie Wetherill
Last updated: Sept 11, 2019
1 min read

The File Delivery Service (FDS) can deliver any file type in the DRS to a web browser as long as the file is enabled for public delivery (i.e., it's DRS file access flag is set to "P" or "R"). The exception is still image files, which are not deliverable by FDS at this time. If the file delivered by FDS is natively supported by web browsers, it will display/play directly in the browser. For files not natively supported in the browser, the user will be prompted to save the file to a local computer where it can be opened and viewed using local rendering applications.

FDS URLs have the following syntax: http://fds.lib.harvard.edu/fds/deliver/[DRS_file_ID]

Examples of FDS delivered files: 
http://fds.lib.harvard.edu/fds/deliver/123530 (plain text)
http://fds.lib.harvard.edu/fds/deliver/13768034 (PDF)

You can assign an FDS delivery url to a file at deposit (in Batch Builder) or after deposit (in Web Admin "Admin metadata" for the file).Â