[OAI-implementers] repositoryIdentifier

Young,Jeff jyoung@oclc.org
Wed, 17 Dec 2003 17:21:42 -0500


Hi David,

Repository identifiers derive mainly from their use in "oai-identifiers",
which are described at
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/guidelines-oai-identifier.htm. Both of
your examples are suitable, but the second one is a little better since it
allows you to distinguish between multiple OAI servers that your institution
may want to host eventually. Actually, "oai.cdlib.org" isn't so good at this
though since it's too generic. Something better would be IDs like
theses.cdlib.org or eprints.cdlib.org or maps.cdlib.org and so forth.

If you're not using the oai-identifier scheme, there is no requirement for
you to create a repository identifier. They are mainly there as a clue to
where the OAI records came from. For example, if you register your
repository with the OAI Registry at UIUC
(http://gita.grainger.uiuc.edu/registry/) people can take your
oai-identifiers and easily find the home repository where it came from.

One advantage to registering a repository identifier with UIUC is that it
allows you to take advantage of the ERRoL services that I'm developing
(http://errol.oclc.org/). The ERRoL service provides extended functionality
to any OAI repository registered at UIUC (that has a repository identifier
defined). Examples of these services are an OAI to RSS conversion, browser
navigation of the repository, and a variety of persistent URLs to content in
and related to records in OAI repositories. Other services are planned.
These services are only available, though, for OAI repositories that
register a repository identifier at UIUC.

Hope this helps.

Jeff

>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: David Loy [mailto:david.loy@ucop.edu]
>  Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 5:03 PM
>  To: oai-implementers@oaisrv.nsdl.cornell.edu
>  Subject: [OAI-implementers] repositoryIdentifier
>  
>  
>  Sorry to bug the list on something like this but what 
>  exactly does the 
>  repositoryIdentifier represent?
>  
>  Is it an organizational id (e.g. cdlib.org) or is it an 
>  identifier specific 
>  to the oai service (e.g. oai.cdlib.org)?
>  
>  Does the id have any  special functional meaning - used in 
>  some list of 
>  providers etc.
>  
>  Is there  a document (etc.) that describes  the semantics of 
>  these elements 
>  - so I won't have to bug the list?
>  
>  Thanks!
>  David Loy
>  
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