On Mon, 14 Sep 2009, Mike Taylor wrote:

> 2009/9/14 Jonathan Rochkind <[log in to unmask]>:
>> Seriously, don't use OpenURL unless you really can't find anything else that
>> will do, or you actually want your OpenURLs to be used by the existing 'in
>> the wild' OpenURL resolvers. In the latter case, don't count on them doing
>> anything in particular or consistent with 'novel' OpenURLs, like ones that
>> put an end-user access URL in rft_id... don't expect actually existing in
>> the wild OpenURLs to do anything in particular with that.
>
> Jonathan, I am getting seriously mixed messages from you on this
> thread. In one message, you'll strongly insist that some facility in
> OpenURL is or isn't useful; in the next, you'll be saying that the
> whole standard is dead. The last time I was paying serious attention
> to OpenURL, that certainly wasn't true -- has something happened in
> the last few months to make it so?

My interpretation of the part of Jonathan's response that you quoted was
basically, don't use OpenURL when you're just looking for persistant URLs.

The whole point of OpenURL was that the local resolver could determine
what the best way to get you the resource was (eg, digital library vs. ILL
vs. giving you a specific room & shelf).

If you're using OpenURLs for the reason of having it work with the
established network of resolvers, don't get cute w/ encoding the
information, as you can't rely on it to work.

...

From what I've seen of the thread (and I admit, I didn't read every
message), what's needed here is PURL, not OpenURL.

-Joe