[OAI-implementers] Searching open archives

[Howard Noble]

Thank you Owen, Baden and Pete for your responses.

My question stems from me being involved in a project that is creating an
open source and free distributed search tool (- JAFER:
http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/jafer/.
) that implements a JSP interface for executing Z39.50 and SRW over
repositories.

JAFER also provides software that can be 'put infront of a repository' to
translate the interoperable network query into the native DB query language
(e.g. SQL).

The interface is designed to search and select resources returned by the
search and then create a resource list compliant with the new IMS Resource
List Interoperability Specification (http://www.imsglobal.org/rli/).

I am trying to work out the practicalities of setting up SRW, OAI and
OpenURL together:

http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/zing/srw/short-topics.html#oai

So what I need is an OAI repository that implements SRW and a openURL
resolver than can be configured with a 'Link-To syntax to OAI repositories.

1. Does anyone know of an OAI repository that does SRW?

2. Are there OAI repositories that implement 'deep linking' - hyperlink to
the full text for example, based on a simple link-to syntax?

Regards,

Howard


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Baden Hughes" <badenh at cs.mu.OZ.AU>
To: "Howard Noble" <howard.noble at computing-services.oxford.ac.uk>
Cc: <oai-implementers at openarchives.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 5:58 AM
Subject: Re: [OAI-implementers] Searching open archives


>
> Hi Howard
>
> > Can anyone tell me if there is a recommended means for searching an OAI
repository? Z3.50, SRW...?
>
> There's many ways to do this, but AFAIK, not a single recommended
> approach. Certainly the collections aggregated by OAI-PMH can be expressed
> in a range of alternative formats which lend themselves to existing tools
> eg Z39.50.
>
> > How are most repositories cross-searched?
>
> From an end user view there's really 4 models:
>
> 1) individual data providers who also provide a search interface directly

> to their own collections, many of which are embedded with archive
> management suites;
>
> 2) there's a range of aggregation tools which offer search interfaces
> across all OAI data providers eg ARC, MyOAI, OAIster via web interfaces
> for each tool;
>
> 3) via an application instance, where the application itself is OAI-aware
> and connects either to a local collection or an online aggregator;
>
> 4) through interfaces like DP9 automated services like web search engines
> can also index the contents, allowing users to search "on the web" and
find OAI data provider
> contents.
>
> If you consider the list at http://www.openarchives.org/tools/tools.html,
> you'll see a range of these different tools available.
>
> > Also are most repositories open to searching (by users, not harvesting)
or do they require authentication?
>
> Most are open access, ipso facto. I presume that there are some
> repositories which have access restrictions in various forms, but I
> haven't gone looking specifically.
>
> Regards
>
> Baden
>
>