[OAI-implementers] Metadata Formats

[Simeon Warner]

On Thu, 4 Oct 2001, John Weatherley wrote:
> I am implementing an OAI provider for a digital library project that will
> eventually house and serve several different metadata formats. We would
> like our collaborators to be able to request a listing of identifiers of
> records that are available in a given format (not all records will be
> available in all formats).
>
> Currently it appears there is no direct way to make such a query using the
> protocol (ie there is no option to include the metadataPrefix argument in
> the ListRecords request). One cumbersome solution might be to make a
> GetRecords request, then parse out only the identifiers from the return.
>
> Can anyone recommend another solution? Is there a possiblity the option to
> include the metadataPrefix argument in a ListRecords request might be
> included in future iterations of the protocol?

I assume in the above you mean ListIdentifiers when you say ListRecords.
You are correct that there is no way to get a ListIdentifiers request
to return identifiers of records available in a particular metadata
format.

I think that with the current (v1.1) protocol your suggestion of
doing a ListRecords request (which I assume is what you mean by
GetRecords) with the required metadataPrefix and then discarding
all but the identifiers is the easiest way to accomplish what you
want.

Regarding the question of whether this facility should be added to the
protocol, I'm curious to know why you want to be harvest this subset
of available identifiers without also harvesting the metadata. If
this is a community specific situation then it might perhaps be best for
you and your collaborators to define sets corresponding to the
metadataFormats and then doing ListIdentifiers requests qualified by a
setSpec.

Cheers,
Simeon.


> John Weatherley
> Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE)