OAI-compliance for legecy databases
Increasing demands for access to distributed information from a single source requires that the distributed information systems are interoperable. Interoperability is the ability of multiple systems, with different hardware and software platforms, data structures, and interfaces, to exchange data with minimal loss of content and functionality (http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/UnderstandingMetadata.pdf). Interoperability facilitates in building federated systems, which serve as discovery tools for the end-users. With respect to interoperability of digital libraries (DL), the OAI-PMH (Open Access Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) is becoming a de facto standard. Popular institutional repository software like DSpace, GNU EPrints are OAI-compliant software. Many of the institutions / organizations are already maintaining their bibliographic data using software packages like CDS/ISIS (DOS and Windows versions), Libsys or other SQL-based RDBMS. Also, the institutions / organizations many not have the requisite wherewithal to set up and maintain software packages like DSpace or GNU EPrints. Now, the question is, if there is a need to make data contained in non-OAI-compliant systems interoperable, how does one go about? As part of the on-going DSIR funded project, 'Development of OAI-based Institutional Repository Services in India' at the National Centre for Science Information (NCSI), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), we are trying to address this issue. We would like to have some sample bibliographic data, may be around 100 records or so, from different software packages so that we can make use of such data for testing purposes. Please contact us off the list if you wish to share your sample data so that we can provide additional details for sending the sample data. Many thanks. With regards, - Francis & Filbert NCSI, IISc, Bangalore franc@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in filbert@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in
participants (1)
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Francis Jayakanth