I assume you sent a copy of this directly to Kat Hagedorn in addition to this list? (sorry, but there was no obvious indication of this). Roy On 1/25/08 12:42 PM, "Jonathan Rochkind" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Dear OAISter: > > Hi, I have a question about the mission of OAIster. I had assumed that > OAISter would contain only 'open access' materials--that is, if a > 'digital object' was listed in OAISter, than the public would actually > have access to that digital object without paying money. > > Based on this assumption, I've incorporated an OAISter lookup (via > IndexData's publically available indexes of OAISter content) into the > Umlaut open source link resolver software. My thought was that I'd be > pointing my users to possible sources for what they are looking for, > that they almost invariably _would_ be able to actually access. > > However, recently we got an 'error report' where our Umlaut link > resolver pointed the user to a resource in OAISter which turned out to > be for-pay, on BioOne. The OAISter provided URL got the user to a > metadata page, but BioOne then informed them this was not a publically > available article, and to see it they'd have to pay for it. I suppose > that metadata page could be considered a 'digital object' in and of > itself, but this violates my expectations of OAISter--if something is in > OAISter, I thought, one should actually be able to see it, not just see > a come-on asking you for money to see it! > > The particular article can be found by searching a portion of the title > in the OAISter public search: "An ecological risk assessment for > insecticides". Which results in a record with URL: > http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1897%2F1551-3793%2 > 82007%293%5B373%3AAERAFI%5D2.0.CO%3B2 > When I go to that URL, I get a message from BioOne, "*You must have a > subscription to view the full text of this article."* > > But maybe my expectations were incorrect? Can you tell me, does OAISter > intend to only have actual open access content? Do you consider the > inclusion of this article to be a mistake? Or do you have no such > intention, and you are happy to index any content with metadata provided > by OAI-PMH, whether the content is for-pay for public access? If the > latter, I wonder if you would consider making available an aggregator > consisting solely of the subset of OAISter content that IS publically > accessible? Because many of us really do have a need for such an > aggregator, and I thought that was OAISter. > > Or can you give me a list of which 'data contributors' are open access > and which are not, and perhaps I can filter out the ones which are not > on my end? Or any other ideas you have? > > Thanks for any advice, > Jonathan > > -- > Jonathan Rochkind > Digital Services Software Engineer > The Sheridan Libraries > Johns Hopkins University > 410.516.8886 > rochkind (at) jhu.edu --