[OAI-implementers] Possible ERRoL features

[Young,Jeff]

A few new ERRoL features occurred to me this morning. I'm curious what this
group thinks about the possibilities.

Start by assuming that I've changed the ERRoL base from http://purl.org/oai
to http://errol.oclc.org.

- Imagine a "Core ERRoL" of http://errol.oclc.org/<repositoryIdentifier>.
This form would act as a gateway to the baseURL for that repository. In
other words, you could attach OAI parameters to it and it will HTTP redirect
them to the real repository. While this isn't as efficient as going there
directly, it has the benefit of being intuitive. If you know the
repositoryIdentifier, you don't need to track down the baseURL.
- Imagine being able to get an RSS view of the repository by appending
".rss" to this form (e.g. http://errol.org.oclc/<repositoryIdentifier>.rss).
For example, I can imagine that this might be useful if I maintain an OAI
repository of news releases or research project descriptions, etc. The
mechanics of how to specify date ranges and sets, though, are fuzzy. Perhaps
with cookies?
- Imagine being able to append ".v10", "v11", or "v20" to have the
repository responses translated from its native OAI version to the specified
version. For example,
http://errol.oclc.org/<repositoryIdentifier>.v20?verb=Identify for a
repository that currently responses with OAI-PMH v11.

What's great about such ERRoL services is that they would be available to
any repository in the UIUC registry with absolutely no effort on their part.

Thoughts?

Jeff

---
Jeffrey A. Young
Software Architect
Office of Research, Mail Code 710
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
6565 Frantz Road
Dublin, OH   43017-3395
www.oclc.org

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Email:	jyoung@oclc.org