how to participate in the Union Catalogue Project Hussein Suleman Sivulile – Open Access South Africa Advanced Information Management Laboratory Department of Computer Science University of Cape Town September 2005

Overview  Union Archive and Catalogues  OAI Harvesting  Users, Data Providers and Service Providers  ETDMS  IRs and National Projects  Future Directions

What is the Union Catalogue Project  The NDLTD Union Archive is a single archive containing records from multiple NDLTD member sites and consortia.  NDLTD collaborates with various Union Catalogues, each of which provides discovery services for ETDs based on data from the Union Archive.

Purpose of Union Catalogue Project  Create an international catalogue of all ETDs (and TDs).  Provide a one-stop shop for researchers searching for ETDs.  Increase visibility for ETDs.  Make it simpler for new service providers to incorporate ETD metadata.  Make it simpler for new data providers to gain visibility outside their institutions.  Serve as a testbed for cutting-edge DL technology.

Harvesting and the OAI-PMH  The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting is used to share metadata. Transfer of XML metadata records over WWW.  If an institution uses software that includes an OAI-PMH server, then others can harvest its metadata.  An institution can also use an OAI-PMH client to harvest from the Union Archive (or other institutions).

FAQ: Harvesting  If harvesting occurs often, won’t my server be overloaded? No. OAI-PMH only transfers records that changed.  Won’t harvesting expose records I want to protect? No. You can expose the records you want and hide the rest.  But I’ll lose control of my collection and its branding. Not really. You share only the metadata and provide URLs which can lead people back to your institution’s website.

Union Archive and Catalogues Virginia Tech UpsallaIBICT Brigham Young... Union Archive OCLC SRU Virginia Tech Elsevier SCIRUS VTLS Virtua Google Scholar?... sources catalogues

Who hosts the Union Archive/Catalogues  Union Archive OCLC  Union Catalogues: production OCLC – SRU service VTLS Elsevier …  Union Catalogues: experimental Virginia Tech …

Using the Catalogue: as a user 1/4  To search for an ETD, start from the NDLTD website (

Using the Catalogue: as a user 2/4  Select a Union Catalogue and go to their site.

Using the Catalogue: as a user 3/4

Using the Catalogue: as a user 4/4  Using the SRU interface provided by OCLC: Request:  reator%3Dsuleman&maximumRecords=10&recordSchema=default&start Record=1&xsl= reator%3Dsuleman&maximumRecords=10&recordSchema=default&start Record=1&xsl= Response:  n42hu4 300 info:srw/schema/1/dc-v1.1 xml Open digital libraries Suleman, Hussein. … 1 …

Using the Archive: as a service provider  Anyone can be a service provider!  Obtain search/browse software (check OAI website) or write your own.  Harvest metadata regularly from:  Test your interface over a period of time.  Request to be added to the NDLTD browse/search page. Send to

Using the Archive: as a data provider  To contribute your ETD metadata: Install/configure a software module to share metadata using the OAI-PMH. Test your OAI-PMH interface at the OAI’s website ( or the Repository Explorer (re.cs.uct.ac.za) Register your archive with NDLTD:

Software Options  ETDdb+derivatives – Virginia Tech  DSpace +enhancements for ETDs  EPrints  VTLS Valet software  …  Any OAI-compliant IR software

Metadata Formats: DC/MARC/ETDMS  Dublin Core required for OAI-PMH.  MARC(21) is internal format in many ILSes.  ETDMS = DC + 4 extra fields: degree name e.g., PhD degree level e.g., doctoral degree discipline e.g., Computer Science degree grantor e.g., Virginia Tech  ETDMS defines mapping to MARC and DC.

ETDMS  Ideally, Union Archive will harvest ETDMS records, otherwise DC.  Why ETDMS? Dublin Core is not sufficient for ETDs? MARC is too complicated.  MARC is not popular within OAI community. ETDMS defines semantics of DC fields as well as mappings to MARC fields.  rent.html rent.html

ETDMS Sample <thesis xmlns=" xsi:schemaLocation=" 1.0/ Conceptual Development and Empirical Testing of an Outdoor Recreation Experience Model: The Recreation Experience Matrix (REM) Walker, Gordon James … PHD doctoral Forestry Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Institutional Repositories  IRs can include ETDs, and register an OAI- PMH set (subset of metadata) with NDLTD. Do not register a general-purpose IR without specifying an ETD set.  IRs can collect ETD metadata from departmental collections around campus. Register as either departments or campus or region or country.

National Projects  Union Archives can be run on a National or Regional level (in addition to NDLTD’s). Register only the national archive with NDLTD.  Advantages: National registry of ETDs with local search.  Disadvantages: Researchers are restricted to local content. More effort in maintaining archive and services.  Recommendation: Maintain national registry, but register each institution with NDLTD and use international discovery services.

Future Directions 1/2  Union Archive Integration between NDLTD membership management and Union Archive – automatic registration of baseURLs.  Union Catalogues Elsevier SCIRUS integration with NDLTD website. Google Scholar. More experimentation…

Future Directions 2/2  ETDMS Update standard to use DC namespace. Direct object location information?  Rights management? Subject headings? SURVEY!  Preservation Multiple copies of metadata in Union Archive. Multiple copies of source files.

that’s all folks!