OAI and Publishers’ metadata

Using the static repositories approach to disclose small journals

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Overview The Challenge One answer: the OAI protocol

OAI Static Repositories The STARGATE project Project Findings Community Implications STARGATE plus

The Challenge How to make information about

journal articles available so that: the information can be incorporated into

existing and emerging search services the identity of the journal is preserved

i.e. entire issues or runs can be discovered

a link to the published version is part of the discovery service

One answer: the OAI protocol Open Archives Initiative Protocol for

Metadata Harvesting (http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html) provides a “technological framework and

standards […] independent of the both the type of content offered and the economic mechanisms surrounding that content”

is used to support the harvesting of metadata records and support flexible resource discovery services

Project at Heriot Watt under the first PALS programme demonstrated the use of OAI repositories in conjunction with Inderscience

OAI Static Repositories A possible difficulty

An OAI-PMH compliant repository involves “setting up Web servers and writing CGI scripts”

(Linda Kerr, Jim Corlett, Santy Chumbe (2003) Case Study for the creation of an OAI repository in a small/medium sized publishers http://www.eevl.ac.uk/projects_503.htm)

The static repository solution a text file with the appropriate xml structure on

an accessible web space The limits of the approach

About 5000 records per repository A static repository gateway required at another

point in the system

STARGATE Stargate: (Static Repository Gateway and

Toolkit) Aim: To investigate the usefulness of static

repositories for small journal publishers Information Scotland Information Research Journal of Digital Information Library and Information Research

Delivered tools to support the use of static repositories, including cases studies of the four journals and a demonstration software tool (http://cdlr.strath.ac.uk/stargate/tools.htm)

STARGATE (2)

Webpage consisting of article and structured information

STARGATE tool maps metadata

(MS Access)

Static Repository file created

ISP’s web server

Article online

Static Repository

Static RepositoryGateway

Records available to

OAI services

Project Findings Demonstrated the use of static repositories

as a way of allowing simpler participation in OAI-PMH-based services

Showed that using a simple Access database allowed novices to create and update static repositories

without needing to create the xml by hand the metadata provided to be monitored for

consistency

Project Findings (2) Feedback suggests that static repositories

are a good solution for publishers (and others): who don’t want to run their own repository who want to participate without deploying

another repository who need their information updated less than

daily The consistency of the structured

information that users create is always an issue.

Community Implications There is need for Gateway provision

Someone has to provide a static repository gateway

Metadata consistency The community-wide use of a more detailed

metadata scheme (such as the Scholarly Communication Application Profile of Dublin Core) could greatly improve the resource discovery services available to users

STARGATE plus Stargate received a brief extension to

Document the process of setting up a static repository gateway

Examine the community requirements to set up and run a static repository gateway

Examine branding possibilities (and applicability of collection-level description for repository description)

Gateway Branding (from this)

Gateway Branding (to this)

Thank youFor more information please see:http://cdlr.strath.ac.uk/stargate/

Or contact:R. John RobertsonSTARGATE Project ManagerCentre for Digital Library ResearchUniversity of Strathclyde,0141 548 5854 rr@cis.strath.ac.uk