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

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