[OAI-implementers] Another "set" from American Memory

[Caroline Arms]

Records for 7,000+ broadsides, pamphlets etc. from the Rare Book & Special
Collections Division of the Library of Congress are now available for
harvesting from

   http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/oai

The source collection is at:
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/rbpehtml/pehome.html   

OAMH setSpec: rbpebib
OAMH setName: LC Printed Ephemera Selections 

Other American Memory collections, available as OAI sets -- are described
at
  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/oamh/lcoa1_content.html
        
Caroline Arms                            caar@loc.gov
national Digital Library Program
Library of Congress        

Postscript on sets:

We make our record available as sets because we have people who want to
harvest them that way (for instance, I know of a group interested in
building a specialized service related to sheet music) AND we actually
manage the records that way.  And at least one of the service
providers already harvesting our records certainly does it by set,
since they, like us, do batch updates.  When you are dealing with old
materials, it makes lots of sense.  

Sets should certainly be optional, but they are very significant for some
communities.  I did an analysis of use of sets by *registered* OAI
repositories (and there are many unregistered ones) as part of the white
paper on the set description issue for the technical committee.  The
summary statement (by Andy Powell) was

  Out of 49 repositories, 39 are using sets. Of these 13 appear to
  partition their collection by subject area, 13 by genre, and 9 by source
  of records.

We wouldn't use sets if it wasn't easy.  It is in fact easier for us to
use them than not to use them.  Harvesters then have the choice.