[OAI-implementers] OAI identifier resolver

[Young,Jeff]

As a result of discussion following Tom Habing's announcement of an
Experimental OAI Registry at UIUC, I put together an alternative OAI
identifier resolver. Details can be found at the service's web site at
http://purl.org/oai.

Here is the basic pattern for oai-identifiers:

"http://purl.org/oai/" + <oai-identifier>

For example (from the Virginia Tech ETD Repository):

http://purl.org/oai/oai:VTETD:etd-06152001-152749 - default to the oai_dc
entry

Other metadataFormats are accessible by appending the metadataPrefix as an
extension:

http://purl.org/oai/oai:VTETD:etd-06152001-152749.oai_marc

For repositories that don't use the oai-identifier scheme, the pattern is:

"http://purl.org/oai/" + <repositoryIdentifier> + "/" + <identifier>

For example (from DSpace at MIT):

http://purl.org/oai/hpds1.mit.edu/hdl:1721.1/659.oai_dc

Note that I had to add an explicit metadataPrefix extension in this case so
it didn't interpret the metadataPrefix extension as "1/659" due the period
in the identifier.

I also plan to add a ".POI" extension that will return the web resource from
the first dc:identifier in the oai_dc record, but for some reason it's not
working on the production server yet.

There are only three repositories supported by this service
(http://alcme.oclc.org/oai/OAIHandler?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc
), but the rest will be available when Tom's registry is harvestable.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Jeff

---
Jeffrey A. Young
Consulting Software Engineer
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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