[WEB4LIB] RE: OpenURL Standard Z39.88 - Approved

[Eric Hellman]

Most people on the list are probably familiar with the use of OpenURL 
to link to full-text journal articles in libraries.

The just-approved OpenURL NISO (and thus ANSI) Standard does the following
1. it cleans up some loose ends for the journal article and book 
linking applications (versioning and identification, primarily).

2. it adds metadata sets to enable open linking for patents, 
dissertations and "dublin core" objects.
  so now you can use openurl to link to Abraham Lincoln's patent, 
Stephen Hawking's PH.D Thesis, and other stuff.

3. it provides machinery that enables communities to define 
extensions for new types of subject matter.
This last is most needing of a "show me" examples.
example areas where open linking could prove useful
- links to musical works and performances
- links to stock information
- links to legal cases
- links to biological organisms
- links to scriptural passages
- links to major league baseball players
but I'm not holding my breath.

At 1:35 PM -0700 4/16/05, K.G. Schneider wrote:
>Interesting. I read on the site, "The proposed OpenURL standard is syntax to
>create web-transportable packages of metadata and/or identifiers about an
>information object. Such packages are at the core of context-sensitive or
>open link technology, which has recently become available in scholarly
>information systems. By standardizing the syntax, we will enable many other
>innovative user-specific services in this and other information fields."
>
>Do we have three or four "show me" examples to explain this to people
>unfamiliar with the standard?
>
>Karen G. Schneider
>kgs at bluehighways.com


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Eric Hellman, President                            Openly Informatics, Inc.
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