[Web4lib] Open Content and Open Standards

[Sebastian Hammer]

Hi All,

(apologies for any cross-posting)

At Index Data, we have long felt that there were really interesting
sources of open content out there that was not being utilized as well as
it could be because it was hidden away in websites. We're a software
company specializing in information retrieval applications, so
eventually we asked ourselves, 'what could we all do with this stuff if
it were exposed using our favorite open standards'.

We thought it was worth finding out, so we have set up processes to
regularly retrieve indexes of major open content resources, and make
them available using SRU and Z39.50. We've started with the Open Content
Alliance and Project Gutenberg (two quite different approaches to
producing free eBooks), Wikipedia, the Open Directory Project, and
OAIster. More is on the way.

Connection information and more details are available at
http://www.indexdata.com/opencontent/ .

The kind of metadata you can get from these sources varies. The Open
Content Alliance captures MARC records along with the scanned books,
which makes for excellent metadata. Many of the others produce some
variation of DublinCore. Our service, through either Z39.50 or SRU/W,
exposes both MARC (or MARCXML) and DublinCore in XML for all sources.

We've created a new mailing list to help inform people of changes to the
services, new resources available, etc. Signup at
http://lists.indexdata.dk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oclist/ .

We sincerely hope you will find these resources exciting and useful.
Feel free to get in touch if you have questions or input.

--Sebastian

-- 
Sebastian Hammer, Index Data
quinn at indexdata.com   www.indexdata.com
Ph: (603) 209-6853 Fax: (866) 383-4485