[OAI-general] RE: [EP-underground] Linking to arXiv.org (fwd)

[Stevan Harnad]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 12:50:31 -0700
From: Ed Sponsler <eds@library.caltech.edu>
Reply-To: EPrints Underground List <eprints-underground@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: 'EPrints Underground List' <eprints-underground@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: [EP-underground] Linking to arXiv.org

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher Gutteridge [mailto:cjg@ecs.soton.ac.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 11:39 AM
> To: EPrints Underground List
> Subject: Re: [EP-underground] Linking to arXiv.org
> 
> 
> Is your goal to "suck" info out of arXiv in some way? In 
> which case eprints
> software may not be ideal for your aims. Possibly what you need is a 
> "harvester" which sucks from each of these other archives and 
> combines the
> info into a database. The trick is to get arXiv(and the 
> others) to export
> their data so you can identify your papers. This may well be 
> a job for OAI
> (http://www.openarchives.org)
>
> This really isn't a solved problem. Does anyone else on the 
> list have any
> useful insight?

An idea that just popped in my mind: how about a 'Set' (or subject) creation
plugin for EPrints. It would take a search result list and assign a common
subject to them all. The OAI would export that as a Set, which can then be
selectively harvested. [Is my understanding correct that EPrints subjects
are in fact OAI sets? And that OAI has a mechanism to selectively harvest
sets?]

Shouldn't be to tough to add a "make subject" link in a staff eprint search
result screen, prompt for a subject name and add that name to the subject
field for all records returned in the set.

A more sophisticated approach would be to enable queries like: 'Create a set
for each author'. The script would then need to generate a search query for
each author name and assign them to a subject/set. Another valuable query
would be to 'Create a set for these year ranges'. Many other possibilities.

All of this of course relies on good and consistent metadata to create
complete and relevant sets.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ed Sponsler, Sr. Computing Analyst
Caltech Library System


> On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 02:52:11PM +0100, Avril Conacher wrote:
> > Hi there,
> > 
> > Many of our physics and astrophysics academics already submit 
> > their papers to existing e-print servers including 
> arXiv.org, and have 
> > been doing so for years. 
> > If we were to set up our own new institutional e-print server here, 
> > are we able to provide links from our site to theses 
> existing eprints 
> > or would we have to ask the academics to re-submit their papers to 
> > our server as well?
> > 
> > Many thanks,
> > 
> > Avril Conacher
> > SELLIC Digital Library Officer
> > University of Edinburgh
> > Darwin Library
> > tel. 0131 650 7433
> > The King's Buildings
> > Edinburgh
> > EH9 3JU
> 
> -- 
> Christopher Gutteridge -- cjg@ecs.soton.ac.uk -- +44 (0)23 8059 4833
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