ASIN Resolver
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Introduction
An openURL link resolver takes bibliographic data and checks a database to see if the institution has electonic rights to a particular article or journal. Getting the bibliographic data right can be quite a task. There are, after all, lots of different formats to consider - journal articles, books, book chapters, theses, etc. Generally, data submitted to our Resolver from a native interface will be somewhat more reliable than data from SingleSearch (although SingleSearch is getting much better).
Openly provides a manual. It is password protected. It's mainly for administrators, so be sure to ask Slavko for access to this when you sign up to administer your Resolver.
Every month, Openly sends updates to us. These updates contain changes to journal "packages". A package might be, say, the Elsevier titles. If they add a new title, it will be refected in the package. Grant Johnson at UPEI installs the updates for everyone when they arrive. Thanks, Grant. We really appreciate the work you do on everyone's behalf.
On most Resolver screens, there is a link to the catalogue to check if the journal or item is available in print. It is possible to load local print holdings into the Resolver knowledge base. Doing this saves the user clicks in checking for print holdings. ASIN sites hould consider loading local print holdings.
Something else all sites should consider is joining CrossRef. Follow the link for instructions.
Currently using 1Cate. The Resolver is currently installed on the server at UNB and each institution maintains their own resolver components.
- What is the 1Cate business model? What is the impact the January/06 purchase of 1Cate by OCLC? How will OCLC evolve the product both in terms of functionality and pricing?
- What is the architecture of the current Resolver?
- How does the ASIN Resolver system work in terms of maintenance and localization?
- What do CAUL institutions do locally and what does the "maintenance team" do centrally?
- What is the impact of Dalhousie using the Serials Solutions resolver and how will this impact the rest of the ASIN partners?
Local Resolvers
There are lots of components in the ASIN Resolvers. The base system is the Openly Informatics (a division of OCLC) system. It is mounted on asin1.its.unb.ca and DNS entries are made for each institution's instance of the Resolver. Below are listed links to latest versions of the Resolvers and the admin interface for each. IDs and passwords are required for administration. Contact slavko@mun.ca for access.
Openly 1Cate Advantages
- running on Canarie
- update frequency under our control
- not clear of this is an advantage? We have to load the knowledgebase each month.
Staffing Issues
- One significant staffing requirement is updating the knowledgbase.
- This currently requires about 1/2 day per month per version of Openly.
- Sirsi will do the updates if we wanted, but we decided to do them ourselves.
- We decided to do it because it helps build capacity (builds knowledge) and we define our own queue, rather than waiting for Sirsi to add us to their queue.
- Another less significant issue is the local branding. which is more involved at setup and requires tweaks after that.
- Either local staff or ASIN central staff will do the changes.
- HTML files and CSS.
- After an update of the software there may well be changes that need to be made to take advantage of new functions.
Business Issues
- We now get support for this product direct from OCLC. Our contract is still handled through SirsiDynix.
- What are the advantages to working through Sirsi for Openly?
- Are there other vendors of Openly?
This page contains links to unicode files in 1.6 format to upload CRKN purchased packages into your local holdings
Release Notes
Release49 Release Notes
Release51 ReleaseNotes
1_6_6 Release Notes
Downloading your local Title list
Paul Moss from Openly has provided a great tip for those of us interested in downloading our local Resolver Title list.
We can download our local Title list in XML or tabbed delimited format. Both files will be the complete title list for the local Resolver.
You should change the institution part of the URL to point to your own resolver and log in with your regular admin password.
NOTE: If downloading the tab-delimited file - Open it in Notepad(os equiv) and save the file in Unicode format to maintain titles with accented characters.
Onix SOH (XML) format:
http://smu-resolver.asin-risa.ca/onixsoh?action=onixsoh&NR=unlimited&template=onixsoh.xml
Tab delimited text file:
http://smu-resolver.asin-risa.ca/titleList.txt?action=dlISSNs&NR=unlimited&template=tdfTitleList.dt
Subject Listings in Openly
Over the time this project has been running, there has been periodic curiosity about the subject listings and how they are maintained. Most of the work in this matter is done by a small company in the Southern Hemisphere called Genamics. Their Web site for this service is at:
http://journalseek.net/
Here's a screen shot taken in late April 2007. It shows that Genamics (and Openly) know about 92,000 journals. If we add the totals beside the major categories, we find that they add to about 45,000. There are, naturally, duplicates among these. So a significant proportion of journal titles do not have a subject assigned. Should you have a journal or series of journals that you want to have linked to subjects, please contact Steve Sloan (sloan@unb.ca). He can make the assignment if you send the ISSN, journal title, and subject. The update will take some time - perhaps some months - to appear.
The subject headings and sub-headings can also be changed if a good case can be made for the proposed change. ASIN has been successful in getting a "Sports and Recreation" category established and has had other changes made to sub-categories. Please forward requests to sloan@unb.ca.
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