WHY LIBRARIES WILL CARE HOW LINKING WORKS...

WHY LIBRARIES WILL CARE HOW

LINKING WORKS...

November, 2000

Citation LINK

MAGICLINK

Cited Article

Citation

WHAT WE ALL WANT TO ACCOMPLISH

CLICK

Any old system

Any old system

CitationDOI

Step1

Step2 DOI Resolver

DOI

URL

Cited article

Search response

RepositoryURL

Article

Step3

HOW DOI PERFORMS “MAGIC”

CLICK

BUT -- WHAT IF MORE THAN 1 COPY EXISTS?

• Elsevier journals, for example, are on-line at:– Elsevier ScienceDirect– OhioLink– University of Toronto

WHICH URL?

HandleServer

DOI

URL?

Sciencedirect.com?

Ohiolink.edu?

Utoronto.ca?

A PROBLEM

DOI today cannot resolve to more than 1 copy

ACM

DOI (to Elsevier)

Ohio State User

ELSEVIER

Cited article

OhioLink

A BAD THING….

(or: “$25, please”)

CLICK

ARTICLECitation

WHY MULTIPLE COPIES

• “Local loading”– A number of institutions are already loading e-

journals for their local populations• OhioLink, Toronto, University of Illinois...

– As local digital library infrastructures (and archiving projects??) grow, this may become more common

WHY MULTIPLE COPIES

• Aggregators– Most electronic journal access in many

institutions today is through aggregators• OCLC EJO, EBSCO, Ovid, IAC, Bell & Howell

– Smaller publishers, publishers outside of STM, and smaller libraries rely much more on aggregators than direct access through publisher sites

WHY MULTIPLE COPIES

• Mirror sites– Common for reasons of performance,

redundancy, and telecommunications costs– Which mirror (address) you should use can

depend on “where” you are on the net– Some publishers now negotiating for

institutions to mount mirror systems for archiving (eg., APS mirrors at Cornell and Library of Congress)

WHY MULTIPLE COPIES

• E-print servers– A lot of current interest in building subject-

specific e-print collections (which include published articles)

• LANL, PubMedCentral, CDL, Cornell...

– And some interest in institution-specific services (D-Space at MIT)

– Relationship to formal publications certain to be complex and overlapping

WHY MULTIPLE COPIES

• Preservation archives– Institutional failure is as great a danger as

technological failure • Multiple copies held by different parties is the best

protection

– May be no linkage problem if the archive is “dark”, but…

• How “safe” are unused copies?

• Much current discussion of “dim” (low functionality) full service archives for local use

THE APPROPRIATE COPY

• When more than 1 copy exists, specific populations frequently have the right to access specific copies– Some systems today can do this tailored

linking (ISI, for instance)– But... it must be done by EVERY system from

which links can come• Can we expect every citation source to do this???

LOCALIZATION (THE INSIGHT OF SFX)

• In a world of restricted access and complex business arrangements, what options a user is given and what information s/he is offered is frequently a local question

• SFX demonstrates there are any number of links that an institution might choose to offer a user from a given citation

• Appropriate electronic copy is only the most immediate issue….

Paper is also a copy

• Electronic links are great, but users should also know there is local hard copy available

Any old system

DOI (to Elsevier)

Harvard User

ELSEVIER

Search response

ANOTHER BAD THING….

(or: “$25, please”)

CLICK

but there is a free paper copy next door….

ARTICLECitation

Proxy problem

• To provide access from off-campus, many libraries now provide proxy servers

• With most proxies, if you are not coming from a proxied resource, a link will not be proxied

PubMed

DOI (to Elsevier)

Off-campus User

ELSEVIER

Local Proxy

Cited article

Search response

YET ANOTHER BAD THING….

(or: “$25, please”)

CLICK

ARTICLECitation

DIGITAL LIBRARIES OF OLD

• Closed systems

• A designer at the top

• Predictable players and parts

• Control of both ends of a relationship

• Task was to build a system

NOW WE KNOW

• Open, open, open

• No one designer -- evolves organically

• Unpredictable players and parts

• Nobody is in control

• Task is integration of independent parts

WILL THE ENVIRONMENT BE CONSTRAINED?

• A generalized link-from-anywhere-to- anywhere solution will allow the e-journal environment to evolve naturally

• We are in a period of much necessary experimentation– Who are the players?– What are their roles?– How many options will users and libraries have?

DOI INFRASTRUCTURE FEELSQUITE CONSTRAINING TODAY

(A HOT-LINKED DOI GOES ONLY 1 PLACE…)

BUT CHANGING THIS WILLNOT BE EASY!

A CURIOUSITY (or, is something missing?)

The primary unit in the DOItechnical architecture is article

but….

the primary unit of business for journals is title + year

SUMMARY

1. Multiple copies will exist, and if nothing is done we are going to have

a bit of a MESS!

SUMMARY

2. Assuming a single point of resolution is too constraining at a time of rapid

evolution and massive uncertainty about roles and players!

SUMMARY

3. The infrastructure must be built to support complexity, localization,and a

variety of heterogeneous services and solutions!

CROSSREF/DLF LINKING PROTOTYPE

• Group of research libraries coordinated by DLF approached CrossRef on the “appropriate copy” issue

• Series of discussions between publishers, DOI, CrossRef, libraries, service providers, NISO ensued

• Prototype to test “localization” of linking over next 6+ months

Any old system

CitationDOI

Step1

Step2 DOI Resolver

DOI

URL

Cited article

Search response

RepositoryURL

Article

Step3

REMEMBER HOW DOI PERFORMS “MAGIC”

CLICK

Any old system

CitationDOI

Step1

Step2 DOI Resolver

DOI

Search response

PROTOTYPE ARCHETECTURE

CLICK

DOI SERVER:Does user havelocalization?

LOCALIZATIONSERVICE

(at library or service provider)

Y

N

LOCALIZATION

• DOI resolution is optionally redirected to a server specific to a population

• Localization server decides what response a user should get for this DOI– Refer to electronic copy from publisher or alternate service

(local, aggregator, etc.)

– Information about paper copy in collection

– etc., etc.

• Resolution is based on local collection and business arrangements