[ba-ohs-talk] OpenURL NISO development
(Found this whilst surfing from the Resources for Image-based
Humanities Computing at http://www.rch.uky.edu/~mgk/looksee/ ) (01)
This might be of interest for online DKRs.
OpenURL
http://www.niso.org/committees/committee_ax.html (02)
"The proposed OpenURL standard is a syntax to create web-transportable
packages of metadata and/or identifiers about an information object. Such
packages are at the core of context-sensitive or open link technology. By
standardizing this syntax, the OpenURL will enable many other innovative
user-specific services. (03)
Conventional web links do not take into account the identity of the user:
they take all users to the same target. This causes some problems. For
example, when more than one institution provides access to copies of the
same electronic article, the link from citation to full text should resolve
to a copy that is accessible to the user. Since different users have access
to different digital libraries, the link should resolve in a user-specific
fashion. Beyond this particular example, known as the appropriate-copy
problem, there are many other applications documented in the literature
where it is necessary to take the users' context into account when resolving
certain links. In order to do this, such a link must be able to: (04)
Package metadata and identifiers describing the information object.
Send this package to a link-resolution server or resolver.
Since this resolver may be aware of the user's context, it is able to take
into account the identity of the user when resolving the metadata into
specific targets. (05)
To facilitate the development of user-specific services beyond
context-sensitive linking, the OpenURL standard must take into account the
needs of the scholarly-information industry as a whole, not just a segment.
In addition, we have to keep in mind other information communities where the
generic mechanism for making identifiers and metadata available to service
components may be applicable. For example, product descriptions could be
linked to technical-support services targeted to specific user categories.
In fact, the OpenURL standard may even have relevancy at the level of basic
Internet infrastructure, where resolution of identifiers in a
context-sensitive manner is required. While the initial focus of the
Committee will be on scholarly information, the standard it develops must be
extensible to allow future application into other information domains. (06)
Standards Committee AX is charged with developing syntax for creating
web-transportable packages of metadata and/or identifiers about an
information object. To this end, the standard should incorporate: (07)
syntax for packaging metadata and identifiers describing information objects
syntax for pointing to a user-specific resolver that can accept this
packaged data, combine it with user information, and resolve the data into
actual links.
Current context-sensitive link-resolution systems use pragmatic approaches,
such as browser cookies or user profiles, to determine a user's preferred
resolver. Experimentation with different, perhaps less ad-hoc, approaches
toward setting the preferred resolver should be encouraged. For this reason,
the OpenURL standard should not include the resolver-selection mechanism,
only the syntax for pointing to a resolver. (08)
The Committee's starting point will be the OpenURL syntax developed by Van
de Sompel, Hochstenbach and Beit-Arie. Many publishers in the
scholarly-information community are already using this syntax in their
electronic publications. The detailed proposal is available at
http://www.sfxit.com/OpenURL. It is the responsibility of the Committee to
examine this proposal and implement any changes it deems necessary.
Considering the advanced stage of development of the proposal before us, it
is particularly important to analyze the proposal in detail to assure that
it serves the needs of the scholarly-information community, not just a few
isolated constituents. The Committee must also reach out beyond the
scholarly-information community and assure that the standard it develops is
extensible: the generic mechanisms underlying OpenURL must be made available
to other information communities. (09)
Members of the scholarly-information community (independent of their current
involvement with context-sensitive linking) are relying on existing systems
of metadata and identifiers. For this reason and because of its initial
focus on scholarly information, the Committee must examine how the proposed
OpenURL standard should relate to other existing standards in the
scholarly-information community, including but not limited to metadata
standards (such as MARC, ONIX, OAI, and Dublin Core) and identifier
standards (such as DOI, SICI, BICI, ISSN, and ISBN). (010)
Status
SC AX held its first meeting June 28-29, 2001" (011)
Things are still moving on the committee's website at
http://library.caltech.edu/openurl/default.htm (012)
Looks as though they are just getting out of the process of scoping their
deliverables, so early days in committee terms, but the text above seems to
indicate some maturity of development for OpenURL already. (013)
Cheers,
Peter (014)