[WEB4LIB] RE: Linking journal databases to the periodical

[Thomas Dowling]

> At 4:58 PM -0800 1/19/01, George Porter wrote:
> >The burden on the database vendor, in this example ISI, is to construct
> >OpenURLs and to build a mechanism for recognizing which users should get
> >OpenURLs.  One way to do this, proposed by ExLibris, is to build a
"cookie
> >pusher" <http://sfx1.exlibris-usa.com/openurl/cookiepusher.html> to
provide
> >the context to bring each database user the options chosen for them by
their
> >librarian.  The cookie includes the location of the appropriate SFX
server
> >for a given database user.
>
> Another way to do this, is the so-called "central-site redirection"
> mechanism which we implemented in LinkBaton
> http://my.linkbaton.com/jvip/00954403/20/3/22/1994 (the same Roy
> Tennant article)
>


No one solicited predictions when we hit 01/01/01 (see, January 2000 really
*was* the new millennium for all intents and purposes :->), but here's a
pretty obvious one.  By 01/01/02 there will be at least ten solutions
available for the problem of adding local intelligence about availability to
metadata requests.  Some will be commercial and proprietary; others will be
GPL-ish and open source; several will be tied to library catalog systems.
OpenURL is the most likely candidate for ferrying those requests around the
net, but let's not overlook the fact that it's still just starting down the
path to being a NISO standard.

One hiccup for which I don't see easy solutions is the "let's just have each
database vendors and electronic publisher alter their services to support
Method X for identifying localization servers" approach.  There may or may
not be some impetus for those services to send DOIs to doi.org (via OpenURL)
and have doi.org work out whether and where the user has a localization
server, but that approach has its own problems.

Regardless, and as is usually the case, the software will be the easy part.
The hard part will be the policy-making and staff power needed to create
reliable tables that identify availability on a title-by-title basis--and
for some sites on a user-by-user basis also.


Thomas Dowling
Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu