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Curating external video hosting services in a Mukurtu Archive with a concern for privacy

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This set of instructions is for adding video content into Mukurtu CMS. Because hosted instances of Mukurtu are limited in their total file storage, it is not practical for those with a large amount of video content to host this content directly within the CMS. Additionally, utilizing a cloud-based service to segregate media and data, and content-presentation, makes administering archives more manageable (for example, the archive, should it be moved to a different server, will be smaller in size since it does not contain giga- or terabytes of video content).

Full-scale, enterprise-level digital preservation services exist (please contact us for more information), but the scope of this document is to utilize a free service, YouTube. Because a free service such as YouTube can make little guarantee as to preservation (our immediate aim being content presentation and media sharing), it is prudent to maintain local or remote additional backups of your content. It would be helpful down the line to embed the location identifier for such content in the YouTube description or Mukurtu CMS metadata.

Unlisted content on YouTube is not publicly accessible on the web. That is, YouTube will not publish anything about this item to the public web, search engines, advertisements, etc. The only people who will be able to view the content are those with whom you have shared the link, or to whom you have given access to a system with which you have shared the link, which is our case here, in Mukurtu CMS.

Uploading to YouTube.com

  1. Sign in to YouTube.com.
  2. Click Upload.
  3. Change Privacy from “Public” to “Unlisted”​​​Drag and drop files into the YouTube uploader.

  4. Fill out the YouTube metadata.
  5. Change the default video thumbnail, if desired.
  6. And its uploaded!


Importing into Mukurtu CMS

  1. In a new tab or window, sign into your Mukurtu Archive.
  2. Add a new Digital Heritage item.
  3. Fill out all the metadata fields.
  4. Click on the video icon on your scald media drawer.
  5. Choose the “YouTube” upload option.
  6. Copy the url for the YouTube video from the URL bar at the top of your browser.​
  7. Paste it in the youtube tab back in Mukurtu.
  8. Click submit. You can now add any metadata, or continue to find the media in your SCALD Library.
  9. Drag and drop your media into the media assets box of your digital heritage item.
  10. You have successfully uploaded a video that is hidden from the public web into your Mukurtu Archive!

*Note: You can also upload unlisted Vimeo videos if you have a paid account. The videos must be public at the time of adding them to Mukurtu, but can be made private again just after import.