Oren Beit-ArieEx Libris (USA) Inc.

NISO Standards Committee AX

June 28, 2001

OpenURLCurrent draft proposal

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL Framework

Conventional Linking:

- User interacts with an Information Service and retrieves references

- Typically, the IS attempts to deliver reference links (default links)

- In many cases, those links are not-so-adequate (e.g. non context sensitive)

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL Framework

OpenURL Framework addresses this problem:

Provides an architecture that enables provision of additional, appropriate links by third parties

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL Framework

OpenURL Framework key concepts:

1. Collaboration of Information Providers: by providing a hook to references

- this will enable the delivery of metadata and identifiers of the referenced work to a third party service component

- the hook is an HTTP request. OpenURL

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL Framework

OpenURL Framework key concepts:

2. Existence of 3rd party Service Components

- are the targets of the hooks

- provide appropriate, context sensitive resolution of the metadata and/or identifiers of the referenced work, into service-links

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL Framework

OpenURL Framework key concepts:

3. Existence of a specification that describes the format of the hook

- this is the OpenURL draft specification- the task of this committee to standardize

Oren Beit-Arie

“NOU” linking

Link Source

Link Destination

Link .Resource Resource

Resolution of Links

Provision of Links

* NOU – non OpenURL

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL linking

Link Source

OpenURL.Resource

Resource

Service

Component

Resolver/Link Server

Provision of Hooks Resolution into Links

Context Sensitive

Link Destination

Link Link

DestinationLink

Link Destination

Link Link

DestinationLink Hook

Appropriate

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL Framework

Architecture for Open Linking, because: It’s about untying the provision of the reference (the responsibility of the Information Service that originates the OpenURL) from the provision of Link Services to that reference (the responsibility of the Service Component which is the target of the OpenURL)

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL Framework

• Service Component: Accept OpenURLs as input Provide context-sensitive/ localized/alternative resolution of links, based on Metadata and Identifiers of the Referent

• It’s all about Metadata

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL Framework

Link Source

OpenURL.Resource

Resolver/Link Server

Fetch

MD Repository

• Parsing the OpenURL for Metadata

• Using Identifiers (keys) to FETCH

MD Identifier/s

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL

• Metadata is transported:

Explicitly – by Value – on the URL

Implicitly – by Reference – using identifiers/keys that enable FETCH of metadata

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL - Goals

• Scholarly Information

• Low-barrier; easy to implement

• Syntax for making Metadata and Identifiers about the Referent available to Service Components

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Current Specs

BASE-URL Address of the Service component

Query Description of the Referent/s(metadata and/or identifiers supporting the delivery of link services)

OpenURL ::= BASE-URL ‘?’ QUERY

Appropriate Service Component(localized, context-sensitive resolution)

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Current Specs

• Follows URI-specs

• name=value pairs

• allows for multiple Referents

• HTTP GET (and POST)

• UTF-8 encoding

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Current Specs

QUERY ::= DESCRIPTION (‘&&’ DESCRIPTION)

DESCRIPTION :==

ORIGIN-DESCRIPTION ‘&’ OBJECT-DESCRIPTION

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Current Specs

DESCRIPTION :==

ORIGIN-DESCRIPTION ‘&’ OBJECT-DESCRIPTION

ORIGIN-DESCRIPTION: Description of the Resource from which the

OpenURL originates

sid=VendorID:DatabaseID • sid=IOPP:jnl_ref • sid=EBSCO:eric• sid=SWETS:snn

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Current Specs

DESCRIPTION :==

ORIGIN-DESCRIPTION ‘&’ OBJECT-DESCRIPTION

OBJECT-DESCRIPTION: Description of the Referent

(by means of metadata and/or identifiers)

Contains 3 zones:

• GLOBAL-IDENTIFIER-ZONE• OBJECT-METADATA-ZONE• LOCAL-IDENTIFIER-ZONE

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Current Specs

GLOBAL-IDENTIFIER-ZONE:

Contains reference to a global namespace and an identifier of the Referent that is unique within the that namespace.

‘id’ ‘=’ GLOBAL-NAMESPACE ‘:’ GLOBAL-IDENTIFIER (+)

• id=doi:10.1000/6789-1• id=pmid:98765430• id=oai:arXiv:physics/0003456

Can be used to FETCH additional metadata for the Referent

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Current Specs

OBJECT-METADATA-ZONE:

(Explicit/by-value) metadata for the Referent, in specified metadata schemes (7 possible genre values).

META-TAG ‘=‘ META-VALUE (Name-Value pairs)

• genre=article&issn=1234-5678& volume=12&issue=13&spage=121

• genre=article&atitle=my paper&title=Journal of Good News&sici=1234-5678(199802)12:14<121:>2.0.TX;2-B

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Current Specs

LOCAL-IDENTIFIER-ZONE:

information in non-standardized syntax, defined by the Resource

low-barrier imp.; local identifiers; other

‘pid’ ‘=’ VCHAR+

pid=<authors>Solin+M;+Campi+P</authors><ui>21010488</ui><date>20020201</date>

pid=1234567

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Examples

1. Institute of Physics Publishing:

http://demo.exlibrisgroup.com:8888/demo?sid=IOPP:jnl_ref&genre=article&aulast=Kottos&auinit=T&issn=0031%2d9007&stitle=Phys%2e+Rev%2e+Lett%2e&volume=79&issue=24&spage=4794&date=1997

BASE-URL

ORIGIN-DESCRIPTION

OBJECT-METADATA-ZONE

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Examples

2. Ebsco:

http://demo.exlibrisgroup.com:8888/demo?genre=article&issn=08966273&volume=28&issue=2&date=20020201&spage=309&sid=EBSCO:cmedm&title=Neuron&atitle=Synaptic%20autoimmunity%20and%20the%20Salk%20factor.&pid=<authors>Solimena+M;+De+Camilli+P</authors><ui>21010488</ui><date>20020201</date><db>cmedm</db>

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL – Examples

3. SilverPlatter ERL:

http://demo.exlibrisgroup.com:8888/demo?sid=ERL:mdl&pid=345003456

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL - Acceptance

• Fast• Keeps growing• Wide range of information resources:

• A&I databases• OPACs• E-journals• E-print archives (OAi)• Other local data repositories

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL - Acceptance• Bell & Howell Information and Learning

ProQuest • EBSCO Publishing

EBSCOhost • The Gale Group • Institute of Physics Publishing

AxiomElectronic Journals

• ISIWeb of Science

• Swets BlackwellSwetsNetNavigator

• SilverPlatter ERL

• SLAC-SPIRES (Stanford) • ArXiv.org • Ovid • OCLC FirstSearch • Cambridge Scientific Abstracts

http://www.sfxit.com/sources.html

Oren Beit-Arie

OpenURL Deployment:

Lessons learned:• Extensive usage of the pid (LOCAL-

IDENTIFIER-ZONE):

• To overcome limitations in the OpenURL “metadata schema”

• To provide local identifiers; FETCH information

• For User information• …

• Missing contextual elements (.. Later..)• Compliancy levels (??)

• Keep it a low-barrier