Using COinS to Provide OpenURL links

In the particular case of an agent that uses the metadata to make an OpenURL for use with an OpenURL link server, this last step would consist of the following:

  1. select all span elements with class="Z3988" or class="Z3988 other class names".
  2. replace the content of the span element (but not the span element itself), with an HTML anchor element ("A").
  3. append the extracted ContextObject and an OpenURL version identifier to the baseurl of the local link server.
  4. put the resulting URL into the HREF attribute of the A element.
  5. use the anchor text or button image for the local link server for the contents of the anchor element.
  6. If the target resolver supports only 0.1 OpenURL, adjust the rest of the URL accordingly. If the target resolver supports 1.0 OpenURL, add a version identifier to make the OpenURL valid.

The COinS from the specification page, after activation would be:

<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.issn=1045-4438">
<A HREF="http://library.example.edu/?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.issn=1045-4438">Find at Example Library</A>
</span>

Converting 1.0 OpenURL for use with 0.1 resolver systems (a guide for authors of processing agents that use COinS to add OpenURL links)

Activating agents will need to adjust the OpenURL resulting from the above procedure for use with specific resolver systems such as those which only understand version 0.1. This is a straightforward process, which is outlined here in gory detail:

  1. First of all, 0.1 systems will only understand book and journal article links- in version 1.0, these openURLs use the journal and book metadata formats:
    rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal
    rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:book
    Activating agents will need to skip other metadata formats (patents, dissertations, Dublin Core links and other formats which may become popular in the future) for 0.1-only resolver systems.
  2. By removing "rft." from the book and journal referent metadata keys the OpenURL can be made functional for all known 0.1-only resolver systems.
  3. There are a small number of new metadata keys introduced in OpenURL 1.0 that need to be adjusted for use with 0.1 resolver systems.
    1. "jtitle" should be replaced by "title".
    2. "btitle" should be replaced by "title".
  4. genre should be set to "article" or "book" if it is not already present in the 1.0 OpenURL.
  5. the syntax for identifiers is different in 0.1 and 1.0. The following replacements should be made:
    1. "rft_id=info:pmid/" should be replaced by "id=pmid:".
    2. "rft_id=info:doi/" should be replaced by "id=doi:".
    3. "rft_id=info:bibcode/" should be replaced by "id=bibcode:".
  6. set sid=something. In 0.1 OpenURL, the value of sid is more or less a proprietary value, so you can't really convert the OpenURL 1.0 equivalent. So just use it to identify your activating agent.
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