1. OpenURL: Pointing a Loaded Resolver
Kristina Long
Simon Fraser University
Access 2003

2. Outline Projects OpenURL 101: Link Resolvers: Version 0.1 Version 1.0
knowledgebase
link resolving logic
administrative Interface

3. OpenURL and Link Server Projects
GODOT
Holdings, requesting and full text linking software used by COPPUL and ELN
Parses incoming OpenURLs
GODOTjake
Full text link server used by GODOT and written by Todd Holbrook
CUFTS
Completely redesigned link server written by Todd Holbrook
Parses version incoming OpenURLs. Provides HTML output for links directly from citation or XML output for use by software like GODOT.

4. OpenURL 101: version 0.1
Syntax for a URL containing bibliographic information
Version 0.1 is simple to understand and implement
28 data elements for describing seven different genre:
Bundles: journal, book, conference
Individual items: article, preprint, proceeding, book item
Includes field for local information

5. OpenURL 101: version 0.1 Example (without escape encoding):
?genre=article
&sid=SAMPLE:citations
&title=Phi Delta Kappan
&atitle=A tale not widely told
&volume=74
&date=1992
&pages=196-7
&issn=
&pid=<an> </an><authors>Doe, John; Brown Peter</authors>

6. OpenURL 101: Version 1.0
National Information Standards Organization (NISO) trial of 1.0 in progress – trial ends November 2003
Framework has been generalized so it will be of use for more than bibliographic citations (eg. legal documents, genome sequences)

7. OpenURL 101: version 1.0
!!!!! More information about differences between 0.1 !!!!
!!!! Example !!!!

8. Implementing Incoming Version 0.1 OpenURL Links
Minimal implementations (eg. ISSN only)
Need parser for local information in ‘pid’ field
Quality of data in OpenURL varies among vendors
Vendor documentation often minimal or non-existent
Vendor OpenURL linking feature can’t be customized (eg. link image or wording, window size, window name)

9. Link Server Software Most common application of OpenURL Components:
Knowledgebase
Link resolving logic
Administrative interface

10. Knowlegebase Essentially a title list database:
ISSN
e-ISSN
full text coverage (date, volume and issue)
embargo period (days or months)
vendor specific ID/code
base URL
DOI
Local configuration information may also be considered to be part of knowledgebase

11. Knowledgebase: Vendor Title List Problems
Lack all the required fields
Poor quality or only intended for humans to read (eg. coverage dates in inconsistent formats)
No easily machine readable format provided (eg. Tab-delimited)
Not updated frequently
Not easy to find on website or only available by request

12. Link resolving: Storing Linking Information
How to store linking information?
Code (eg. Perl) using provided utility functions
Link templates
Procedure for libraries that want to add their own links to new resources

13. Link resolving logic: Issues
Do you pre-fetch the link?
Pro: minimizes bad links
Cons:
extra logic for linking module
if not a proper API, then wording changes on vendor’s end may break linking module logic
increases vendor/publisher site hits
increases time to return results

14. Link resolving logic: Issues
Do ISSN only lookup or do title as well?
If doing title matching then:
do you use a title authority file? – may be time consuming to maintain
fuzzy mathing vs. false positives
How to handle multiple hits from the same provider (eg. Article appears in multiple Ebscohost databases)? Need provider level de-duping.

15. Administrative Interface: Simpifying Configuration
Make details of the implementation of links transparent to the person doing the configuration
Minimize the amount of information required to configure the resource
Make the configuration screen specific to the resource
Provide site groupings for multiple branches or consortial environments

16. Administrative Interface: Data Merging Issues
Which title list details need to be able to be overridden at the library level (eg. coverage, journal title)?
Determine when the data displayed for a particular screen should be the merged, the local or the global data.
Consider how to clearly display the merged data
SQL not good at handling overriding data, so must be done by application code

17. Administrative Interface: Minimizing Duplication of Work
Allow integration with external subscription databases (eg. Custom e-journals databases, Serials Solutions)
How to implement integration?
Live lookup on remote database.
Upload dump of data (manual or automated)
Either way must maintain mapping of resource names

18. Administrative Interface: Partial Collections
When a library only subscribes to some of the titles on a title list
eg. Springer, High Wire
Avoid duplicating work library is already doing to keep track of full text titles in:
Catalogue
E-journals database (local or vendor)

19. Administrative Interface: Partial Collections (continued)
Approaches for minimizing duplicate work:
Do lookup in catalogue, but hard to be sure it is the same vendor – need more information in 856
Provide web interface to select titles
Allow uploading of local ISSN lists