Re: [VuFind-Tech] Standardizing journal OpenURLs

[Demian K. <dem...@vi...>]

Thanks for these suggestions (and also public thanks to Jonathan Rochkind, who made some similar recommendations in response to a private email off-list).

Based on all the information I have received so far, I'm planning to take a few actions:

1.) In the [OpenURL] section of config.ini, rather than having some parameters hard-coded on the OpenURL resolver address, I will change the "url" setting to be a base URL only.  I will also add a "resolver" setting (with initial legal settings of "sfx" or "other") so that VuFind can dynamically add "sfx.ignore_date_threshold" only when appropriate.  This also opens the door to future resolver-specific customizations if necessary.  When we release VuFind 1.0, the upgrade script can take care of fixing the configuration settings by auto-detecting an appropriate resolver setting based on the contents of the url setting.

2.) When generating OpenURLs for COinS, VuFind uses the [COinS] / identifier setting from config.ini.  (Default = "info:sid/vufind.svn.sourceforge.net:generator").  It would probably make the most sense to change this setting to [OpenURL] / ref_id; now is probably the time to do it while I'm cleaning up the config settings anyway.  Also, since I want to centralize OpenURL processing, the referer should be used for all OpenURLs, not just COinS.

3.) My main goal in cleaning up and standardizing the OpenURL code is to improve link resolver integration; I don't want to break any Zotero functionality, but I'm also not actively trying to improve it right now...  so an unAPI implementation is not on my plate just yet.  However, it sounds like a good long-term goal, so I have opened a JIRA ticket (http://vufind.org/jira/browse/VUFIND-248) and attached some of Jonathan's comments there for future reference.  If anybody else is interested in working on this in the meantime, feel free to claim the ticket... but please let me know so we can coordinate our efforts, since there might be some overlap with the work I'm currently doing.

- Demian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Walker, David [mailto:dw...@ca...]
> Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 4:57 PM
> To: Demian Katz; vuf...@li...
> Subject: RE: Standardizing journal OpenURLs
> 
> > Is there a standard format that provides the rich data
> > Zotero expects (title, publisher, etc.) but also tells a link
> > resolver that we want to link to a top-level journal title page?
> 
> I'm not sure if there is a standard way to do this, actually.
> 
> You can add this parameter to the OpenURL to affect SFX:
> 
>   &sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1
> 
> That basically tells SFX to show full-text links regardless of
> coverage.  So, in essence, a journal-level link.
> 
> Without that, SFX will, by default, assume you're looking for a journal
> article.  And if the OpenURL contains only an ISSN, without even a
> year, then SFX doesn't have enough information to determine
> availability, and so won't show you any options.
> 
> In that way, you can supply as much additional information in the
> OpenURL as you like -- although I'm not sure what you could provide
> beyond journal title and publisher for a journal link -- and it won't
> throw-off SFX.
> 
> But I would actually recommend using unAPI rather than COINS, as the
> best way to get citation data into Zotero [1].
> 
> > Another matter that's really confusing me is that, at least
> > with the SFX resolver, the rfr_id parameter seems to affect
> > behavior.  I had assumed that a referer ID was more of an
> > informational field
> 
> It is an informational field.  But you can configure SFX to behave
> differently based on the value of the rfr_id -- or any other parameter
> in the OpenURL.
> 
> The one you have here tells SFX that the user is coming from SFX's
> Citation Linker.  SFX seems to have built in some special logic for
> this scenario, showing journal level links if the genre=journal.
> 
> It has the same practical effect as the 'ignore_date' one above.  But,
> really, VUFind should be identifying itself in this rfr_id field.  You
> might want to come-up with a 'sid' for VUFind, like
> 'villanova.edu:vufind'.  I'd recommend making that configurable.
> 
> That would allow you to create display logic in SFX for users coming
> from VUFind, like maybe hiding a link to the catalog, since the user
> would have already seen the catalog record in VUFind.  That's a common
> practice among SFX implementers.
> 
> --Dave
> 
> [1] http://www.google.com/search?q=unapi+zotero
> 
> ==================
> David Walker
> Library Web Services Manager
> California State University
> http://xerxes.calstate.edu
> 
> 
> From: Demian Katz [dem...@vi...]
> Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 11:44 AM
> To: vuf...@li...
> Subject: [VuFind-Tech] Standardizing journal OpenURLs
> 
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm trying to plan out some improvements to VuFind's OpenURL handling.
> However, I'm not too familiar with the standard, and I'm seeing some
> mysterious behavior that I'm hoping somebody can explain.
> 
> The first specific issue I'm trying to clean up involves handling of
> OpenURLs for journals.  The record driver code generates these one way,
> in order to come up with a COinS entry that yields good results inside
> Zotero (but resulting in something that doesn't work well in a link
> resolver).  Conversely, the search results list generates them in a
> bare-bones fashion with just an ISSN and genre of journal -- this
> yields reasonable results with link resolvers but is useless for
> Zotero.  I would like to find a compromise that performs well in both
> contexts, so that all responsibility for the OpenURL generation can be
> centralized in the record driver.
> 
> A core factor in the problem seems to be that linking at the journal
> title level is problematic -- I think part of the problem Zotero gives
> bad results for many journal-oriented OpenURLs is that it is expecting
> issue or article-level fields and gets confused.  Is there a standard
> format that provides the rich data Zotero expects (title, publisher,
> etc.) but also tells a link resolver that we want to link to a top-
> level journal title page?
> 
> Another matter that's really confusing me is that, at least with the
> SFX resolver, the rfr_id parameter seems to affect behavior.  I had
> assumed that a referer ID was more of an informational field, not
> something that should influence behavior...  however, this OpenURL gives
> me a full text option:
> 
> http://openurl.villanova.edu:9003/sfx_local?ctx_ver=Z39.88-
> 2004&rfr_id=info:sid/sfxit.com:citation&issn=0098-7484&genre=journal
> 
> ...and this one, with only the rfr_id changed, does not:
> 
> http://openurl.villanova.edu:9003/sfx_local?ctx_ver=Z39.88-
> 2004&rfr_id=info:sid/vufind:generator&issn=0098-7484&genre=journal
> 
> I welcome any and all feedback, suggestions, recommended reading, etc.
> 
> thanks,
> Demian