This article was downloaded by: [University of North Texas]On: 09 November 2014, At: 04:09Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

The Serials Librarian: From thePrinted Page to the Digital AgePublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wser20

How Did We Ever ManageWithout the OpenURL?Nettie Lagace a & Janet K. Chisman ba Ex Libris, Ltd.b Serials and Electronic Resources , Washington StateUniversity , USAPublished online: 17 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Nettie Lagace & Janet K. Chisman (2007) How Did We EverManage Without the OpenURL?, The Serials Librarian: From the Printed Page to theDigital Age, 52:1-2, 211-222, DOI: 10.1300/J123v52n01_17

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How Did We Ever ManageWithout the OpenURL?

Nettie LagaceJanet K. Chisman

Presenters

SUMMARY. The OpenURL, first introduced in 2000, revolutionizedthe world of linking for libraries and their patrons. Six years on,OpenURL link resolvers have become a core technology component inthe library infrastructure. This article reviews the role that link resolv-ers have in delivering full-text and other library services to the patron’sdesktop. Some additional creative uses of link resolvers in local envi-ronments are described, as well as an overview of COinS (Context Ob-jects in Spans). This article also reviews specific applications whichplace library information within major results located via major Websearch tools–Google, Google Scholar, Yahoo, Windows AcademicLive. doi:10.1300/J123v52n01_17 [Article copies available for a fee from TheHaworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:<docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>]

KEYWORDS. OpenURL, link resolver, Google, Yahoo, Windows Ac-ademic Live, COinS

© 2007 by the North American Serials Interest Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “How Did We Ever Manage Without the OpenURL?” Lagace, Nettie,Janet K. Chisman. Co-published simultaneously in The Serials Librarian (The Haworth Information Press, animprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 52, No. 1/2, 2007, pp. 211-222; and: Mile-High Views: Surveying theSerials Vista: NASIG 2006 (ed: Carol Ann Borchert, and Gary Ives) The Haworth Information Press, an im-print of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2007, pp. 211-222. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for afee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mailaddress: getinfo@haworthpress.com].

Available online at http://ser.haworthpress.comdoi:10.1300/J123v52n01_17 211

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GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF OpenURLAND LINK RESOLVER FUNCTIONALITY

OpenURL research work began in 1997/1998 by Herbert Van deSompel at Ghent University in Belgium; Ex Libris acquired the SFXlink server technology from Ghent in February 2000. The OpenURLwas submitted to NISO for standardization work in November 2000,and went to ballot as OpenURL 1.0 in March 2004. In May 2006, thereare more than 10 commercial link server solutions, with many other lo-cal “home-grown” resolvers also in use by libraries.

The link resolver’s purpose is to connect the library’s disparate re-sources in a way that is seen as seamless by the user, which takes intoaccount his/her context or place in the research process: “context-sensi-tive reference linking.” When linking is done by database providers di-rectly to publishers, the library is not involved in the creation of thelinks or addition of other local services, and the proliferation of linksmay be confusing to users and difficult for librarians to manage.

A link server becomes the central repository for linking information,and when it is contacted via an OpenURL by a data provider, it becomesthe decision matrix for which subscriptions are available to the user forthe citation requested. The librarian can design a list of services which isalso useful and necessary for the user to be aware of: the link resolver’s“menu.” Whereas a database provider may link directly to a publisher towhich the library may not subscribe and the user would see a pay-per-view access, OpenURL is utilized by the database provider to send cita-tion metadata to a link resolver. The librarian can redirect these links toa local library subscription, perhaps in an aggregator database, a docu-ment delivery option, or a print copy available locally. The library’ssubscriptions are placed at point-of-need, better serving the end user.

For most source databases, the library may create and display a localimage as a link button, which supports library “brand recognition”among the suite of databases from different vendors which may beavailable to the end user.

Commercially available link resolvers include CSA Ulrich’s Re-source Linker; EBSCO LinkSource; Endeavor Discovery Resolver;GODOT/CUFTS; Innovative WebBridge; Ovid LinkSolver; ProQuestSerials Solutions Article Linker; TDNet TOUResolver; OCLC Openly1Cate; as well as Ex Libris SFX.

The typical “flow” of an OpenURL is from a source abstracting andindexing (A&I) database which sends the OpenURL containing citationmetadata to a link resolver which has been configured by a library. The

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link resolver interprets the metadata contained in the incomingOpenURL and creates a menu of service links which is displayed to theend user. The user chooses his or her preferred service from the link re-solver menu and a target link, ideally to the article-level if the service isa full-text article, is created.

The NISO standard syntax for creating a link between an informationsource and a link resolver is NISO Z39.88-2004; the original“OpenURL 0.1” syntax was written by Oren Beit-Arie of Ex Libris,Patrick Hochstenbach and Herbert Van de Sompel of Ghent UniversityBelgium (Van de Sompel is now affiliated with Los Alamos NationalLaboratory). The OpenURL 1.0 standard pre-defines sets of data ele-ments to use in describing an “item.” More information about theOpenURL standard can be found at: http://www.niso.org/committees/committee_ax.html.

Databases beyond abstracting and indexing (A&I) are good candi-dates for OpenURL support. Also, a database of full-text articles couldpotentially create OpenURLs for each of the references at the end of thearticle, allowing end users to check local availability for these in oneseamless click. OPACs could support OpenURLs for serial records,making the constant verification and updating of 856 URLs a task of thepast. Digital repositories could support OpenURL for records, allowingthe user to check for related local services. The library’s A-Z list couldsupport OpenURL instead of using hard-coded journal-level linkswhich need to be checked and maintained.

Local services can range from full-text links appropriate to the li-brary’s subscriptions, to a link to the print holdings available in the li-brary’s catalog, to pre-populated document delivery forms (ideallyavailable as an option only when full-text is not immediately availableto the end user), to “save citation” forms which allow the end user tobuild a bibliography, or save the citation to a local EndNote orRefworks repository, to view the journal’s external description or rank-ing value from a database such as Ulrichsweb or the ISI Journal CitationReports. Libraries may also create their own services–SFX librarieshave created services for students and faculty to post the citation to theirblogs, or attach keyword labeling tags to the citation and add it to auniversity-wide database of citations.

Link resolvers can support library decision-making such as invokinglogic to suppress certain full-text targets in the presence of others, or tolink directly to full-text when it is available.

Any link resolver is set to act upon the intersection of three individualcounterparts: the library’s electronic and print collections, which must

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be defined in the link resolver’s database or “KnowledgeBase”; poten-tial services which are envisioned by the librarians ahead of time in gen-eral (e.g., we would like to show full text when possible; we would liketo display a document delivery form when possible; we would like todisplay a service to allow the student to capture the citation to his blog;we would like to display a service to allow the user to chat with a librar-ian), and data rules, which prevent or allow services based on themetadata available in the incoming OpenURL, or user-specific circum-stances or identification such as any information which could be as-sumed from her IP address. The most typical rule in link resolver actionis date availability of a particular journal–e.g., it is not appropriate toshow a link to a particular full-text provider if the date contained in anOpenURL submitted by an end user does not match the full-text avail-ability for that provider. Or another rule could be, do not show a certainset of medical journals to users from the engineering faculty since thejournals are licensed only for the medical faculty.

OpenURL services can be embedded in library pages. For example, apopular tool used by SFX library customers is the “Citation Linker” toolwhich allows an end user to input citation metadata by hand into a form.The Citation Linker script will then build the OpenURL and send it tothe SFX link resolver to show the user services for his/her metadata.Many SFX customers embed this form into their library Web pages, in-cluding their SFX-generated A-Z lists.

EXAMPLES OF USE

Dynamic Presence of Link Resolver Button

Often the display of a link resolver button or the presence of anOpenURL can be triggered dynamically. For example, the Scopus data-base available from Elsevier uses an API (automatic programming in-terface) to check an SFX database for full-text availability in advance ofdisplaying a list of search results to an end user. Only those citationswhich have a full-text counterpart specified in the SFX link resolver da-tabase show a “full-text available” button in the Scopus interface. Whenthe user clicks the full-text button from the list of search results, he sub-mits an OpenURL to SFX, but the direct link functionality in SFX takeshim directly to the article without showing an intervening SFX menu.An alternate service button is available at the full record level in Scopus

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to allow the user to view any other extended services provided by thelibrary via SFX.

Incorporation of Openurl 1.0 Functionality into a LocalDocument Delivery Application

A corporate customer of Ex Libris has recently embedded the SFXlink resolver functionality into its local document request, tracking, anddelivery service which it makes available to researchers in its global of-fices. The first phase of the work simply involved the support forOpenURL in the company’s global product literature database, whichincludes references for scientific articles involving its products and re-search. Each of the article references displays an SFX button to allowthe researcher to check for available services for the citation. The com-pany has coordinated SFX with its global network login so as a usersends an OpenURL to SFX, his or her country affiliation is made knownto the link resolver, which may show different subscriptions or libraryservices based on the country of origin and the subscriptions for thebranch of the corporate library in that country.

The second phase of interoperability involves the use of the “CitationLinker” tool to initiate document delivery requests. The Citation Linkertool allows the user to input a journal title, or an abbreviated form of ajournal title, which will check for title matches listed in the SFXKnowledgeBase whether subscribed to or not. All journal title matchesare displayed to the end user, and she may submit an article request forany one of them.

A fuller Citation Linker form is made available, and the researcherfills in more information about her desired citation: year, volume, issue,startpage, article title, author name–as much information as available.These Citation Linker inputs are formed into OpenURLs and held in adocument order “basket” to allow the user to request further articles aspart of the same request. The user may edit or remove items from herbasket and “check out” at any time. When the user “checks out,” herbasket of items is formulated into an OpenURL representing multiplecontext objects, or citations, and submitted to the SFX server usingSFX’s support for OpenURL “SAP2” XML. OpenURL 1.0 supportsthe formation of XML representations of multiple context objects or ci-tations. SFX supports the resolution of multiple context objects.

For each of the user’s submitted citations, where full-text availabilityis found in the SFX KnowledgeBase, her order screen will show an indi-cator for “no charge,” because the library already has a subscription for

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her requested article and she will be able to use SFX to access it. For thecitations where full-text is not found, the standard charge for article de-livery is shown to her in her order screen and she may choose whether tochange any element for the citation, or remove it from the order afterseeing the cost and estimated total.

The user submits the order. A third screen appears which lists all heractive requests (e.g., previously submitted requests still in process inaddition to the requests she has newly submitted). For the citationswhich are available locally, she is shown “ready to download” links.These will utilize the direct link capability in SFX to take her directly tothe article from her request screen. Other citations in process have textindicating whether they have already been delivered to her or if they are“in post,” in the document delivery process. Colored icons help to indi-cate whether she can access the article from her screen or if she mustwait to receive a physical, printed copy.

Local Expedited Document Delivery Service

An SFX customer, North Carolina State University, has used theSFX KnowledgeBase and local customization features to create a spe-cific local service, called “ScienceDirect Rapid Request” to cope with alocal subscription situation. For budgetary reasons, NCSU decided todisassemble the “Big Deal” Elsevier bundle to which it had previouslysubscribed, dropping titles which had received little use. In order to winfaculty support for the changes in subscription, NCSU instituted a“Rapid Request” policy for specific Elsevier titles to which it no longersubscribed directly, guaranteeing a 48-hour turnaround on requests.This service necessitated a separate workflow–not that of regular docu-ment delivery–in order to ensure that the requests were appropriatelyprioritized.

NCSU created a local Document Delivery target in SFX, and popu-lated it with entries for each of the affected Elsevier titles. An existingtarget linking program was modified to prepopulate a special formwhich included hidden fields to identify it as a “Rapid Request.” Thuswhen OpenURLs are submitted to SFX for one of the titles for whichelectronic access had been dropped, the library user is able to see avail-ability of the special “Rapid Request” service on the SFX menu and eas-ily submit a request for the material. These requests are filtered to aseparate queue within the document delivery department.

The Rapid Delivery target appears differently on an SFX menu thandoes the standard ILL target, with different wording and ordering. The

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user is taken to a dedicated form labeled as “Rapid Delivery” or“Tripsaver.” The form is pre-populated with citation details and the usermay fill in any further details before submitting the form.

Local Target

Another SFX customer, Williams College, has undertaken a verysimple local target to assist its undergraduate population with the use ofDissertation Abstracts. After implementing OpenURL in their sub-scribed source databases to link to SFX, the librarians at Williams no-ticed that library users, usually undergraduates, were submitting a highnumber of document delivery requests for abstracts from “DissertationAbstracts”–the UMI publication which publishes short descriptions ofPhD dissertations from institutions in the U.S. and Canada. These typesof requests are quite often fruitless as the dissertations themselves aremore difficult to acquire, and are typically more in-depth than usuallyrequired for an undergraduate research project. Submitting these re-quests usually resulted in frustration and disappointment for the stu-dents, while they clogged the library’s ILL office–making it difficult forlibrary staff to respond to more appropriate requests.

Williams College created a local target in SFX which contained en-tries reflecting the ISSNs for the different sections of Dissertation Ab-stracts. Instead of offering a document delivery request form on menusresulting from these OpenURLs, users would be led, using the directlink functionality of SFX, to a library Web page written by the instruc-tional librarian which provided additional information about Disserta-tion Abstracts and the benefits and disadvantages of using dissertationsin research. If the user were still interested, a link to the document deliv-ery service page was made available.

Other Uses of OpenURL

The acronym “COinS” stands for “Context Objects in Spans,” whichreferences both the “Context Object” concept of OpenURL 1.0 and theSPAN element of HTML. COinS is supported wherever authors ofHTML pages use the SPAN element to embed any available, specificcitation metadata as an OpenURL into the HTML itself. Users with aCOinS-capable browser who have configured their local link resolverinto their browser (typically using a downloadable browser PlugIn orscript) will see link resolver buttons and OpenURL capabilities in thesepages through the automatic processing power of the browser. Users

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who do not have a COinS-capable browser see no effects. COinS usesthe OpenURL 1.0 standard, so any recipient link resolver must be ableto support this version of OpenURL.

OpenURL is a supremely useful way for citation metadata to betransported from a source database to a user’s local link resolver for ser-vice resolution. But the function of determining the address of a specificuser’s link resolver is usually tied to the method a database vendor usesto recognize requests from its customer base–that is, the association ofthe address of a specific link resolver with the “payload” or content ofthe OpenURL might be tied to an IP address of a library or library proxyserver. And, OpenURLs are most often created and inserted by databasevendors in their products, certainly a most-sought after feature, but itwould be useful to be able to view and use OpenURLs in other Webpages as well–anywhere bibliographic data is in use. Using COinS, any-one creating an HTML page may create OpenURLs for citations, andany user who wishes to direct the OpenURL content to his or her localresolver may do so, by taking a few simple steps to add COinS function-ality to his browser. COinS functionality could also be seen as one stepfurther along the path to enabling users to specify their own desired ser-vices for OpenURLs, in addition to services provided by the librariansvia the link resolver configuration.

There are a few existing tools which allow a user to add COinS func-tionality to his browser. One is a GreaseMonkey script used with a localconfiguration file; the other is a downloadable PlugIn. Both tools areavailable from a Web page created by Dan Chudnov of Yale University(http://curtis.med.yale.edu/dchud/resolvable/), and are supported on theFirefox browser. After installation, the browser will be configured withthe following elements: the base_URL or main address for the link re-solver, the server address where the OpenURL metadata or “payload”will be sent; the link text to be displayed as an ALT tag for the link re-solver button; and the Web address for the button itself.

Open WorldCat supports COinS in its pages. In the HTML code forbibliographic entries resulting from a search in Open WorldCat, OpenWorldCat includes an OpenURL 1.0 entity, or context object, for thebibliographic record. This entity is described within SPAN tags andlooks as any OpenURL does, but without the base_URL. An example:

<span class=“Z3988” title=”url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/worldcatlibraries.org:worldcat&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft_ref_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:xml:xsd:oai_dc&rft_ref=http://partneraccess.oclc.org/wcpa/servlet/OUDCXML?oclcnum=40435195&rft_id=info:oclcnum/40435195&rft_id=urn:ISBN:&rft_id=urn:ISSN:1539-7262&rft.aulast=&

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rft.aufirst=&rft.auinitm=&ft.atitle=&rft.jtitle=Journal+of+lipid+research+JLR.&rft.date=1959&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=&rft.epage=&rft.pages=&rft.issn=1539-7262&rft.eissn=0022-2275&rft.aucorp=rft.place=&rft.pub=&rft.edition =&rft.series=&rft.genre=journal”></span>.

When this SPAN entry is read by the browser as it interprets theHTML on the page, the PlugIn or script which has been installed on thebrowser can act on the OpenURL data, show the link resolver button orgraphic, and when the user clicks the button, submit it to the link re-solver specified by the PlugIn or script, which will provide local avail-ability and other services for it.

Other sources which support COinS are: ZeToc, which provides ac-cess to the British Library’s electronic table of contents service, avail-able to higher-education and health services library users in the UnitedKingdom; HubMed; CiteULike, and many blogs (often those authoredby librarians). Tools exist to build OpenURLs so any blogger creatingcontent may easily include COinS entries in the HTML of his pages.

WEB SEARCH APPLICATIONS

Washington State University Libraries has been using the openURLto increase the visibility and availability of its information resources onthe Web for patrons using Google, Google Scholar, Yahoo and Win-dows Academic Live. WSU Libraries is participating in OpenWorldCat and the OCLC eSerials Holdings Pilot project as well as reg-istering its link resolver with Google Scholar and Windows Live Aca-demic. By taking these steps WSU Libraries is placing library resourcesdirectly into the major Web-based search tools often used by patrons astheir primary means of locating needed information.

OPEN WORLDCAT

Open WorldCat is an OCLC program designed to make records from theWorldCat database available in search results from queries using Google orYahoo. Participation requires an OCLC membership, contribution of libraryholdings on WorldCat and a subscription to FirstSearch. Librariesmeeting these requirements can register their link resolver with OCLCvia the FirstSearch Administrative module. Once the library link re-solver is registered, patrons preceding their searches in Google and Ya-hoo with the phrase “find in a library” will find WorldCat results listed

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first in the hit list. Links to search the library catalog are prominentlydisplayed. More information on the program is available on the OCLCWeb site at http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/ along with informationon some additional browser tools that can facilitate Open WorldCatsearches.

OCLC ESERIALS HOLDINGS PILOT

OCLC is also exploring ways to facilitate the addition of holdings forelectronic resources to WorldCat. The OCLC eSerials Holdings Pilothas been in testing for over a year, and the free service will be madeavailable in July, 2006. OCLC eSerials Holdings Pilot is a project be-tween OCLC and several vendors supplying ejournal data to subscrib-ing libraries: TDNet, Serials Solutions, EBSCO and Ex Libris. A file oflibrary holdings is loaded into WorldCat. A matching algorithm devel-oped for the pilot project matches the information in the holdings filewith WorldCat records and adds the library OCLC holdings symbol.Currently 95% of the ISSN-based holdings are being automaticallyadded to records for the electronic titles. OCLC is also developing amethod to Web crawl an SFX Google Scholar file which would elimi-nate the need for the library to send the file on a regular basis to OCLC.More information on this pilot is available at http://www.oclc.org/productworks/eserialspilot.htm.

WSU is participating in order to increase exposure to its ejournals onthe Web in the Open WorldCat program. This in turn will increase useof subscribed materials and drive down cost per use. WSU is also inter-ested in improved access to eholdings via interlibrary loan. During thepilot, WSU discovered some interesting effects on workflow and cata-loging.1

GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Google has developed a database of scholarly material available viathe Google Scholar search interface–http://scholar.google.com. Googlealso provides libraries the ability to register a link resolver for linking tolibrary services associated with retrieved records. In addition to regis-tering their link resolver, libraries must submit a holdings file. GoogleScholar uses information in this file to determine if full text is available.

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If it is, a text link to the libraries’ link resolver is included following thetitle of the article in the results list. If full text is not available, then asmaller link appears at the end of the article listing. Development of thisservice provides opportunities for libraries to direct patrons to sub-scribed full text as well as other library services presented on link re-solver service menus. This works well if a patron is on campus using amachine with registered IP addresses. For off-campus access, the patronneeds to use a link to Google Scholar that authenticates the user, or thepatron can choose to affiliate herself with a particular institution in theScholar Preference settings on Google Scholar.

Linking for patrons using the resolver text link is more reliable thanthe title links and also takes them to subscribed content for full text ac-cess. There are still problems with constructing a useful openURL.Sometimes the information sent in the openURL is not enough to pro-vide all the linking that should be available. At WSU patrons may findthemselves with only an interlibrary loan option provided rather thanlinks to available full text or the library catalog. As the source data be-comes more standard, the quality of the constructed openURL shouldimprove to make this problem a rare event.

WINDOWS ACADEMIC LIVE

Windows Academic Live (http://academic.live.com) is the MicroSoft an-swer to Google Scholar and is now in beta release. This new MicroSoftsearch engine provides access to scholarly articles in the fields of physics,computer science and engineering. There are plans for expanded subjectcoverage. These plans and other information on the search interface anddatabase are presented at http://academic.live.com/librarians. AcademicLive also provides the ability for libraries to register their link resolvers sotext links to library services can be offered to patrons. The text link to thelink resolver is provided at the end of each search result.

CONCLUSION

From its theoretical foundations in 1997/1998 the openURL has be-come a staple in the repertoire of tools that libraries use to link users toneeded content. Libraries can now provide links to various availableservices at the point of need to authorized individuals using three com-ponents: the library’s collections, available services, and data rules

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which prevent or allow services based on metadata available. Librarieshave applied the openURL linking capability in various ways beyondthe basic access to online full text, library catalogs, and interlibrary loanto provide specialized access to: local document delivery requesting,expedited document delivery service for selected journal titles, andlinks to local instruction pages.

While the OpenURL began its life allowing librarians to link from sub-scribed databases to library services, these services can now be strategi-cally linked within online tools more familiar to our potential users.OpenURL links in Google Scholar, Live Academic, WorldCat and OpenWorldCat in conjunction with Google and Yahoo place library resourceson the Web in results obtained from popular search engines. This is wherelibraries need to be as our patrons use the Web search engines rather thanlibrary-subscribed databases for their primary information location tools.Library resources must be available in this milieu, and the openURL andlink resolvers provide the vehicle to make this happen.

REFERENCES

1. Chisman, Janet K.; Greg Matthews; Lihong Zhu. “To Batch or Not to Batch? TheImpacts of the OCLC eSerials Holdings Pilot.” Technical Services Quarterly. v. 24, no. 4(2007): (forthcoming).

FURTHER READING

Apps, Ann; Ross MacIntyre. “Why OpenURL?” DLib Magazine, Volume 12, no. 5(2006) http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may06/apps/05apps.html

Chudnov, Dan; Richard Cameron, Jeremy Frumkin, Ross Singer and Raymond Yee.“Opening up OpenURLs with Autodiscovery.” Ariadne, issue 43 (April 2005).http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue43/chudnov/

Van Veen, Theo. “Serving Services in Web 2.0.” Ariadne, issue 47 (April 2006). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue47/vanveen/

CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES

Nettie Lagace is SFX Product Manager at Ex Libris, Ltd. Janet K. Chisman is Head,Serials and Electronic Resources at Washington State University.

doi:10.1300/J123v52n01_17

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