[WEB4LIB] Re: context-sensitive linking products

[Walt_Crawford at notes.rlg.org]

I had just responded to Steve Oberg directly, but...

Yes, it's annoying to have people ask "When will RLG implement SFX?" or
talk to me about our "SFX implementation." (We implemented OpenURL last
year, independently other than a bit of feedback from two members. Of
course, we did base it on documents that originated with SFX and were
turned over to the NISO committee working to make OpenURL a standard.)

I've worked with two dozen resolver implementations (testing results using
Eureka OpenURL as campuses test or implement the feature). In my
experience, two of the most effective and sophisticated resolvers--three,
actually--have been home-brew designs, OhioLink's certainly among them.

Hmm. I always tell people that I haven't dealt with the *hard* part of
OpenURL, configuring and populating the resolver; just the easy part
(adding OpenURL sending functionality to a database system). Maybe the hard
part isn't that hard after all?

-walt crawford, RLG, my own opinions-


                                                                                                                    
                                                                                                                    
                                                                                                                    




At 10:54 AM 1/22/2003, Oberg, Steve wrote:
>In light of recent postings to this list relating to Wilson's SFX
>implementation and the movement of many vendors to implement
>context-sensitive linking of some sort as a "value-added service" to
>libraries, I wanted to share a citation to a new article on this topic
>that I think is well worth reading:
>
>Maria D. D. Collins and Christine L. Ferguson, Context-Sensitive
>Linking:  It's a Small World After All, Serials Review, Volume 28, Issue
>4, 2002, Pages 267-282.
>(
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W63-47RHXT5-3/1/1803c65b2fd71f9d3e430f1ef2e5117d
)

[Does anyone else get a giggle out of seeing a citation like this in
connection with a technology designed to solve the appropriate copy
problem? :-) ]



>This article provides a review of costs, features, setup issues, etc. for
>four major products:  SFX, LinkFinderPlus, SIRSI's OpenURL Resolver, and
1Cate.
>
>SFX was the first such product to market and is certainly the market
>leader with the most implementations of the major players thus far, but it
>bothers me that there is routine substitution of the brand name "SFX" for
>"context-sensitive linking" or the OpenURL protocol.


I care.  I compare it to calling all library catalogs "Innovative."

As one of the few people on the list to have written an OpenURL resolver
from scratch, I can tell you it ain't rocket science ("Hey, if Dowling can
do it...").  I know that free software is not always worth what you pay for
it, but we're happy with the cost effectiveness of our solution.



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