UKOLN is supported by: An overview of the OpenURL UKOLN/JIBS OpenURL Meeting London, September 2003...

UKOLN is supported by:

An overview of the OpenURLUKOLN/JIBS OpenURL Meeting

London, September 2003

Andy Powell, UKOLN, University of Bath

a.powell@ukoln.ac.uk

www.bath.ac.uk

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

Contents

• overview of OpenURL background and functionality

• examples

• current and future status

• issues

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to Herbert Van der Sompel for the contents of some of the following slides…

                                                             Background and functionality

Origins of the OpenURL

• the context– distributed information environment (JISC IE)– multiple A&I and other discovery services– rapidly growing e-journal collection– need to interlink available resources

• the problem– links controlled by external info services– links not sensitive to user’s context (appropriate copy

problem)– links dependent on vendor agreements– links don’t cover complete collection

The problem

• the context– distributed information environment– multiple A&I and other discovery services– rapidly growing e-journal collection– need to interlink available resources

• the REAL problem– libraries have no say in linking– libraries losing core part of ‘organising information’

task– expensive collection not used optimally– users not well served

The solution…

• do NOT hardwire a link to a single service on the referenced item (e.g. a link from an A&I service to the corresponding full-text)

• BUT rather– provide a link that transports metadata

about the referenced item– to another service that is better placed to

provide service links

OpenURL

OpenURL resolver(link server)

Non-OpenURL linking

link destination

resolution of metadata into a link(typically a URL)

A&I servicedocument delivery

service

link source

link to referenced work .reference

OpenURL linking

link source.

user-specific

resolution of metadata &identifiers into services

reference OpenURLOpenURL

resolver

provision of OpenURL

linklink

destination

linklink

destinationlink

linkdestination

linklink

destination

transportation of metadata & identifiers

context-sensitive

A&I servicedocument delivery

service

Brief history of the OpenURL

• ~1998 – nature of solution determined• ~1999 – first real experiments (Ghent, LANL,

Wiley, SilverPlatter, Ex Libris, arXiv, …)• ~2000 – OpenURL 0.1 released, adoption by

community, SFX beta released• ~2001 – integration of OpenURL and

DOI/CrossRef frameworks, first non-SFX resolvers appear

• proposal to standardise OpenURL framework thru NISO…

                                                              Examples

Example 1

• journal article

• from Web of Science to ingenta Journals

button indicatingOpenURL ‘link’

is available

OpenURL resolver offeringcontext-sensitive links,including link to ingenta

also links to other servicessuch as Google search for

related information

Example 2

• book

• from University of Bath OPAC to Amazon

button indicatingOpenURL ‘link’

is available

OpenURL resolver offeringcontext-sensitive links,

including link to Amazon

also links to other servicessuch as Google search for

related information

Summary…ISI Web of Science

University of Bath OPAC

OpenURL resolver

ingenta

Google

Amazon

OpenURL SourceOpenURLResolver

OpenURL Target

Summary (2)

• OpenURL source– a service that embeds OpenURLs into its user-

interface in order to enable linking to most appropriate copy

• OpenURL resolver– a service that links to appropriate copy(ies) and other

value added services based on metadata in OpenURL

• OpenURL target– a service that can be linked to from an OpenURL

resolver using metadata in OpenURL

                                                             Current and future status

OpenURL status in UK

• OpenURLs currently in use in some form at– Bradford, EDINA, Edinburgh, UEA, Derby, Bath,

Bangor, MIMAS, Royal Holloway, Westminster, Swansea, …

• OpenURL technology available from several vendors– Ex Libris (SFX), Openly Informatics (1Cate), Endeavor

(LinkFinderPlus), FD (OL2)

• open source solutions– ZBLSA

Standardisation

• all current OpenURL deployment is based on OpenURL version 0.1

• NISO currently standardising version 1.0

• expect to see gradual transition over next 12-24 months or so towards greater use of version 1.0

• …

NISO OpenURL version 1.0

• retains notion of transporting metadata to obtain context-sensitive services

• more flexible framework (metadata, syntax and transport)

• version 0.1 limited to bibliograph resources

• version 1.0 extensible to other communities (e.g. eLearning)

                                                              Issues

Issues for ‘resolvers’

• selecting OpenURL resolver software– hosted vs. in-house?– same vendor as library system or not?

• maintaining OpenURL resolver configuration tables (knowledge base)– this is where bulk of your effort is required– ideally need to include details of all physical and

electronic holdings– may buy-in some of the information from 3rd-party

supplier (e.g. serialsolutions.com) based on knowledge of subscriptions

Issues for ‘sources’

• remember… you’ll probably want to make your OPAC an ‘OpenURL source’

• in general, need to maintain knowledge of end-user’s prefered OpenURL resolver…

• … but in the case of an institutional OPAC, can probably hardwire the same resolver for everyone?

Issues for ‘targets’

• remember… you’ll probably want to make your OPAC an OpenURL target

• need to identify mechanism for deep-linking into ‘target’ service from OpenURL resolver– e.g. does ‘target’ support URLs based on

ISBNs or ISSNs?

• need to disclose this mechanism to resolvers (but no standard way to do this yet)

                                                             Questions?