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This from Herbert Van de Sompel at Los Alamos - an ongoing development in the Open Archives Initiative metadata publishing and harvesting protocol that is heavily used across the digital library world. You are invited to examine the alpha stage of important work to extend the ability to publish OAI records to smaller institutions (scholarly societies, historical societies, smaller archives, library organizations, etc.) who have a web page but not the technical staff to set up an OAI publication space according to the current OAI-PMH requirements. An idea to watch for those of you interested in a richer universe of OAI records. **************************************************** Specification for an OAI Static Repository and an OAI Static Repository Gateway -- Alpha release. Herbert Van de Sompel. ****Please do not distribute further**** The specification of a Static Repository, introduced here, provides a simple approach for exposing relatively static and small collections of metadata records through the OAI-PMH. The Static Repository approach is targeted at data providers that: * Have metadata collections ranging in size between 1 and 5000 records; * Are not in a position to host OAI-PMH-compliant repository software; * Have access to the data-hosting services of a standard Web server, which - in normal circumstances - is permanently network-accessible. The Static Repository is an XML file that is made accessible by a data provider at a persistent network-location. The XML file has a well-defined structure and it contains information similar to that in OAI-PMH responses. This includes metadata records and supporting information required for the purpose of harvesting via the OAI-PMH. A Static Repository becomes harvestable via the OAI-PMH through the intermediation of a Static Repository Gateway. The properties of a Static Repository Gateway are also described in this specification. A Static Repository Gateway can make one or more Static Repositories harvestable. Due to the fact that a Static Repository Gateway assigns a unique base URL to each such Static Repository, harvesters can harvest Static Repository information in exactly the same manner as they harvest any other OAI-PMH Repository. The Static Repository specification (alpha version) is at http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/guidelines-static-repository.htm A short guideline on how to use the Static Repository Gateway (alpha version) that LANL created is at http://lib-www.lanl.gov/~herbertv/wip/OAI-static-repo-demo.html Feedback is welcome at [log in to unmask] David Seaman Director, Digital Library Federation 1755 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20036 tel: 202-939-4750 fax: 202-939-4765 e-mail: [log in to unmask] web: http://www.diglib.org/