Understanding OPDS

Hadrien Gardeur @HadrienFeedbooks

 Creating a new architecture using common, open standards that permits people to find, buy, acquire, and read books from any source, on any device, using many different ebook applications. 

Goal

Read anything, anywhere.

Short Version

State of the ecosystem

> 20 OPDS clients

Mostly used to distribute e-books

> 10 million users… thousands with their own catalogs

Specification and online validation

Fundamental Concepts

Navigation / Acquisition

OPDS is based on resources and collections

A collection aggregates resources

Two kinds of resources :Navigation linkCatalog entry

… for two kinds of collections :NavigationAcquisition

Acquisition link

Acquisition in OPDS means accessing a publication associated to a catalog entry

Multiple acquisition scenarios :Open Access

SaleLending

SubscriptionExtract

Undefined

FundamentalStructures

Catalog

Catalogs are discoverable and can be shared

We use catalogs to…discoverbrowse search

acquire content

Catalogs are meant to organize large collections, enable content providers to curate them, provide

an integrated experience for the end user

Shelf

A shelf is where I store my content

Shelfs can be…specific to a catalogglobal or aggregated

public or privatesynchronized

A shelf enables the user to find and read previously acquired content anywhere

Callback

A callback is a message

It contains…how to acquire the content

metadatalocation of the shelf & catalogservice discovery information

A callback is a message between the content provider and the reading environment.

It opens the door to the reading ecosystem.

Discover OPDS athttp://opds-spec.org