Talk:OpenURL
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Whew, that's a dense description of whatever it is that an OpenURL is. I've read it a few times and though I have some ideas of what an OpenURL might be I'm not sure if any of them are close to correct:
Perhaps someone can give me some guidance and/or some examples.
- OpenURL
- Used in libraries?
- Used by libraries to direct people to appropriate resources?
- How about this? A library posts a story, say an article about a local election, on the library's website. The link from this story says," Click here for a list of articles about this election" and that link contains a code that references the local election and goes to the library's link resolver which returns a collection of stuff--various materials--the library has identified as relevant to the election. Is that close?
--TMH 22:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
In my quest to define OpenURL in an understandable form I have identified four sources from which I shall attempt to write an understandable definition:
Here's what the OCLC has to say about OpenURLs[1]:
Q. What is OpenURL?
A. Remember the card catalog? Everything in a library was represented in the card catalog with one or more cards carrying bibliographic information. OpenURL is the internet equivalent of those index cards. An OpenURL packages bibliographic information into a form that internet services can easily understand. When a user clicks on an OpenURL link, the bibliographic information it contains is sent to a library internet service. The results of that click will vary depending on the library it is sent to- just as a user in a bricks-and-mortar library will be sent to different place to retrieve the item corresponding to the card in the catalog.
- Some other good sources for a definition of OpenURL
- from Ex Libris Group developer of software solutions for libraries and information centers.
- from the OpenURL Committee of the National Information Standards Organization (is that the proper way to refer to this committee?)
- From a division of Proquest that provides OpenURL products.
--TMH 06:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
