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Worldwide (English) Change

The NDLTD Union Catalog

The NDLTD Union Catalog project focuses on theses metadata via the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). This is a lightweight protocol for moving or sharing metadata that allows synchronization of loosely coupled databases and mandates XML Dublin Core as the default metadata format.

Goals

The goals of this project are to:

  • Investigate OAI-PMH by participating in production and beta-tests sites
  • Promote the use of theses and dissertations.
  • Investigate services that can be built with OAI-PMH
  • Understand OAI-PMH from both serving and harvesting viewpoints.
  • Maintain a OAI harvestable public repository of ETDs for all institution that register their ETD OAI site with the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)

Status

So far the project team has:

  • Written an OAI-PMH v2.0-compliant server in Java.
  • Brought up this server containing approximately 800,000 records in XML Dublin core format harvested from institutions all over the world. Dublin Core is the default format for the records some of the records are also in XML Electronic Theses and Dissertation Metadata Standard (ETDMS) and XML MARC formats.

Current activities include:

  • Periodically harvesting metadata from institutions.
  • Adding and harvesting records from new OAI servers.
  • Implemented SRW/SRU for searching records

OAI-PMH is expected to be the major method of moving large amounts of metadata between systems. It can be useful for interoperability beyond simple metadata and useful for repositories even without harvesting.

Related publication

  • McMillan, Gail. 2002. ETDs and Libraries. (PDF:510K/34pp.) [White paper commissioned by OCLC Research.]
  • Gail McMillan is Director, Digital Library and Archives, Virginia Tech. OCLC Research commissioned this report to help OCLC members understand what is involved in beginning and sustaining an ETD initiative.

Team Members




Most recent updates: page content 11 August 2009, prototype 26 November 03.

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Project lead: Thomas Hickey