OpenURL (was Re: Re: What is the meaning of a taxo: URIs ?)

Hi Danny:

Sure thing. Situation where OpenURL is especially useful is whan a
library has subscriptions to multiple databases of licensed content.
(Remember, the Web != free. I think this is where the conceptual
difficulty may arise.) The big problem that OpenURL can usefully
address was initially called the Harvard problem - a Googlable term
(more recently restyled the 'appropriate copy' problem'). Which is?
User (through their institution) has access rights to database A, but
not to database B. A scholarly article can be co-hosted on both
platforms (or in another scenario, the library may subscribe to print
rather than electronic, or it may be able to provide a document
delivery service). User comes across a link (whether quoted, or as the
result of a search) which is (like most dumb opaque links _hardwired_
to a given endpoint). (Think about that - arrogance of the link
publisher.;) Result: joy if link goes to subscription platform, less
than joy if link goes to non-subscription platform. Answer: a
mediation mechansim. Enter: OpenURL - a description technology.
Institutional link servers know about their subscriptions and users
and associated access rights and can thus (when fielded with a
description of the object rather than being presented with an
undeterminable network endpoint) guide their users to an 'appropriate'
copy. That copy may be online, may be offline, may be reached through
a document delivery service. But, the important thing is that the link
 now becomes _productive_, unlike many links out there which are
basically brittle - hit or miss.

Cheers,

Tony  

--- In [email protected], Danny Ayers <danny.ayers@g...> wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:37:07 -0000, Tony Hammond <t.hammond@n...> wrote:
> 
> > More than willing to discuss this topic more. It's kind of an
important technology to us and
> > some of our user communities (i.e. library/publisher relations and
also more importantly
> > end-user).
> 
> Thanks Tony. What might be helpful (for me at least) is if you could
> talk through a simple example, a situation where the meaningful URL
> was doing something that couldn't be achieved (as easily?) using an
> opaque URI + HTTP.
> 
> Cheers,
> Danny.
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> http://dannyayers.com





 
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