OAI tools

[Roy Williams]

Tom

Please find below some links to OAI software that I have found very easy to
use and I can recommend. I suspect that the "XMLfile" package from Virginia
Tech is what you want for exposing your 300 files. It is Perl and I know you
like that.

Writing your own code is not recommended, especially if you have not looked
at any of the 22 independent packages available from ref (1). THe protocol
is not so simple in its details: each package has a lot of code for
manipulation of dates and their serialization, for checking the request
syntax, and for the implementation of the "Resumption Token" -- a part of
the protocol that minimizes server overload. Please look at what exists
before writing your own OAI server.

Roy


(1) Tools for making an OAI service through CGI or servlet
http://www.openarchives.org/tools/tools.html

The tools I have used are:

(1.1) OAICat: Java-based, modular. Has backend interfaces for files or
database
http://www.oclc.org/research/software/oai/cat.htm

(1.2) XMLFile: This perl suite is simple to install and connects to a
directory full of XML files.
http://www.dlib.vt.edu/projects/OAI/software/xmlfile/xmlfile.html

(2) Test suite for OAI compliance
http://oai.dlib.vt.edu/cgi-bin/Explorer/oai2.0/testoai

(3) Repository explorer -- a proxy to allow human exploration of an OAI
registry
http://oai.dlib.vt.edu/cgi-bin/Explorer/oai2.0/testoai


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Caltech Center for Advanced Computing Research
roy at cacr.caltech.edu
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