The OpenURL Standard
Nettie Lagace (@abugseye)
NISO Associate Director for Programs
CEAL Workshop on Electronic Resources
Standards and Best Practices
March 25, 2014
What’s NISO?
• Non-profit industry trade association accredited by ANSI
with 150+ members
• Mission of developing and maintaining standards related to
information, documentation, discovery and distribution of
published materials and media
• Represent US interests to ISO TC46 (Information and
Documentation) and also serve as Secretariat for ISO
TC46/SC 9 (Identification and Description)
• Responsible for standards like ISSN, DOI, Dublin Core
metadata, DAISY digital talking books, OpenURL, SIP, NCIP,
MARC records and ISBN (indirectly)
• Volunteer driven organization: 400+ spread out across the
world
Premise of “Standards”
• Consensus standards created by a community with
various stakeholders
• Trust
• Leading to broader acceptance
•
•
•
•
Standards as plumbing
Standards facilitate trade, commerce and innovation
Standards reduce costs
Standards support better communication and
interoperability across systems
ANSI Standards
• Openness, lack of dominance, balance =
everyone affected has a voice
• Notifications, consideration of views and
objections
• Consensus votes and appeals
• ANSI patent policy, commercial terms and
conditions
• Publication and maintenance
• Credible & have Integrity
Typical flow of OpenURL
Source
http://sfx.calstate.edu:9003/san
marcos?sid=google&aulast=Nati
onal Diabetes Data
Group&atitle=Classification an
diagnosis of diabetes mellitus
and other categories of glucose
intolerance&id=pmid:510803
Link Resolver
(includes KB &
other programs)
Target
http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/28/12/1039
Possible application of OpenURL
1. DOI
http://sfx.calstate.edu:9003/san
marcos?
id=doi:10.4161/auto.19496
Link Resolver
(includes KB &
other
Linkprograms)
resolver
2. metadata
http://dx.doi.org/10.4161/auto.19496
OpenURL function
• Enables transfer of metadata
– From an information resource
– To a service component (link resolver) that can
determine and provide context-sensitive services
for the metadata
Types of OpenURL Sources
•
•
•
•
•
A&I databases
Online journals (references in articles)
OPACs
E-print archives
Your local data repositories
OpenURL Format
• Base_URL
– Server address of service component
• Content
– Elements of the metadata or pointer to metadata in a
public syntax
– Information supporting delivery of services
• Example:
• http://sfx.aaa.edu/menu?genre=article&issn=1234-5678
&volume=12&issue=3&spage=1&epage=8&date=1998&
aulast=Smith&aufirst=Paul
Base_URL
• Information Providers need to know which
BASE_URL to insert into OpenURLs … in order
to provide correct/local service menu/ links …
– User Profiles
– IP address identification
– CookiePusher mechanism
– Digital Certificates …?
OpenURL 0.1 / 1.0
•
0.1
http://linkresolver.com?
&sid=ISI:WOS
&id=doi:10.1234/345678abc&genre=article&issn=1234-5678
&volume=12&issue=3&spage=1&epage=8&date=1998
&pid=%3Cauthor%3ESmith%2C%20Paul%20%3B%20Klein%2C%20Calvin
%3C%2Fauthor%3E&%3Cyr%3E98%2F1%3C%2Fyr%3E
•
1.0
http://linkresolver.com?ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_id=10_1&ctx_tim=201403-23T21:43:23EDT&ctx_ver=Z39.882004&res_id=http://sfx.scholarsportal.info/windsor&rfr_id=info:sid/ISI:WOS&rft.a
ufirst=Paul&rft.aulast=Smith&rft.date=1998&rft.epage=8&rft.genre=article&rft.iss
n=12345678&rft.issue=3&rft.spage=1&rft.volume=12&rft_id=info:doi/10.1234/345678ab
c&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&svc_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:sch
_svc&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&url_ver=Z39.88-2004
OpenURL standardization
• Committee AX – worked 2001-2003
• Utilized initial draft spec (Beit-Arie, Hochstenbach,
Van de Sompel) as input (adopted as OpenURL 0.1)
[http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/category/sfxopenurl01syntax]
• Standardized as ANSI/NISO Z39.88-2004 (R2010)
• Maintenance Agency: OCLC
• OpenURL Registry:
http://oclc.org/research/activities/registry.html
• 2015: Due for review!
Boston MA, Tulips in Copley Square by jcsullivan is licensed under CC-BY 2.0
Thank you! Questions?
nlagace@niso.org
@abugseye