- SandraMcIntyre, 07 May 2009

OAI Provision and Harvesting

Here is some information about checking your collection's metadata for harvesting.

Standard OAI Queries

These standard OAI queries show literally what is being served up in real-time via OAI in Dublin Core for your collection. This OAI stream is what is being harvested by Mountain West Digital Library and other harvesters like Scientific Commons and OAIster.

What are you looking for? This is a great way to see whether the fields you have mapped to Dublin Core are being mapped the way you expected, if any text is getting truncated, or if any Unicode characters are being garbled. Also, if the OAI

stream is not working, you will get an error message in the results, which may be useful.

Examples

Note: There are two sets of examples below. First are standard queries for simple Dublin Core provision of metadata for the "UU_EAD" collection on the University of Utah main CONTENTdm server. The second example is Qualified Dublin Core provision of metadata for the "nts" collection on the University of Nevada Las Vegas main CONTENTdm server. To view your OAI provision, change the queries as follows:

• Insert your baseURL at the beginning of each query.
• Use "oai_dc" for simple Dublin Core or "qdc" for Qualified Dublin Core metadata provision.
• Change "UU_EAD" or "nts" to the alias ("setSpec") of your collection, where called for.

Example Set #1: University of Utah Marriott Library CONTENTdm server

Identify

Identifies the OAIprovider:

http://content.lib.utah.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=Identify

List sets

Lists all the collections (sets) on your server:

http://content.lib.utah.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListSets

List identifiers

Gives the header information only for all records (first 1000):

http://content.lib.utah.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListIdentifiers&metadataPrefix=oai_dc

For the next 1000 (change the number at the end to get the third, fourth, etc.):

http://content.lib.utah.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListIdentifiers&resumptionToken=:::oai_dc:1000

List records

List the records from one collection (change the set name at the end to get another set):

http://content.lib.utah.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&set=UU_EAD

Lists the records from all collections (first 1000):

http://content.lib.utah.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc

For the next 1000 records (change the number at the end to get the third, fourth, etc.):

http://content.lib.utah.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListRecords&resumptionToken=:::oai_dc:1000

Get record

Get a particular record (e.g., item #841 in the UU_EAD collection):

http://content.lib.utah.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=GetRecord&identifier=oai:content.lib.utah.edu:UU_EAD/841&metadataPrefix=oai_dc

Example Set #2: University of Nevada Las Vegas University Libraries CONTENTdm server

Identify

Identifies the OAI provider:

http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=Identify

List sets

Lists all the collections (sets) on your server: http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListSets

List metadata formats

Lists all the metadata formats on your server. The format "oai_dc" is required of all OAI providers. http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListMetadataFormats

List identifiers

Gives the header information only for all records (first 1000): http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListIdentifiers&metadataPrefix=qdc

For the next 1000 (change the number at the end to get the third, fourth, etc.):

http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListIdentifiers&resumptionToken=:::qdc:1000

List records

List the records from one collection (change the set name at the end to get another set): http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=qdc&set=nts

Lists the records from all collections (first 1000): http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=qdc

For the next 1000 records (change the number at the end to get the third, fourth, etc.):

http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=ListRecords&resumptionToken=:::qdc:1000

Get record

Get a particular record (e.g., item #1086 in the nts collection):

http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/oai.exe?verb=GetRecord&identifier=oai:digital.library.unlv.edu:nts/1086&metadataPrefix=qdc

More Information

Need more information about OAI

? See http://www.openarchives.org, particularly http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/openarchivesprotocol.htm#ProtocolMessages for information about queries.