[Web4lib] Re: OpenSearch, Koha, and Library Catalogs [SRW/U]

[Ross Singer]

Eric Lease Morgan wrote:

> Consider using SRW/U (Search Retrieve via the Web or URL) as a  
> standardized way of searching. The search syntax as well as the  
> search results are much more robust when compared OpenSearch.

Eric, I think there's more here than worrying about how robust the 
metadata is in our search results and that is exposure and discovery.

Our OpenSearch implementation is actually based on an SRW/U backend, so 
your concerns are covered, but I don't think it's a realistic 
expectation to ask for "lay" vendors/resources/etc. to adopt SRW/U.  If 
the users are bypassing our systems entirely, it doesn't make much of a 
difference if the metadata we've made available is better.

The advantage that I see to opensearch is that it is /solely/ a 
discovery protocol.  With SRW/U, you have to then figure out how to 
display full records, variants in regards to metadata schemas, etc.  In 
essence, a very robust client needs to be developed.

OpenSearch is much lighter than that and would actually work better in a 
lot of arenas, such as providing an interface to courseware/campus 
portals and other places where you need to provide a simple interface to 
your collections.

Another thing to keep in mind is that OpenSearch doesn't define what 
indexer is used or how to query that indexer.  Our OpenSearch 
implementation responds to CQL queries, so it actually is a very robust 
interface to our catalog.

We get a little hung up on the quality of metadata in our "brief 
results" display, but if you are linking to a page (or means of access 
to - maybe an OAI provider or something) richer metadata, I'm not sure 
the value of more than a good, unstructured description of the object 
linked to.

-Ross.