Data Points

OCLC Research offers free software for the benefit of libraries, archives, and museums. The offerings include useful utilities for the development of library-oriented software and ready-to-use components for library systems. Most packages are open source, although some are offered under other licenses. Please be sure to check the license section of the Web page related to the specific software of interest. Open source offerings include source code and documentation, as well as the class files or binaries.

Licensing

Open source

Since 2006 we have issued open source software under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

Many earlier open source offerings were issued under the OCLC Research Public License 2.0 (PDF version; 130K/3pp.). Which license governs a given package is specified on the overview page for that package as well as in the software itself.

If you have or are interested in open source software licensed under one of the older licenses and would like to use it under the Apache license, please contact us – we may be able to update the software to use the Apache license.

Other licenses

For those few packages not issued under an open source license, the terms and conditions of use are summarized on the overview page and available in full before the end of the download process.

Feedback

We are always interested in hearing about your experiences using and enhancing our software. Please use the contact link below or on the individual software pages to send us your comments.

Ongoing development

Open source offerings are being further developed as Open Source Development projects. You may wish to contribute to the development of this software by becoming a member of one or more of these projects. The Open Source initiative is described in more detail on the OCLC Research Open Software Development page.

Software Activities

COBOAT 

A metadata publishing tool that transfers information between databases and different formats.

OAICat 

OAICat is a Java Servlet implementation of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) v2.0.

OAICatMuseum 1.0 

Allows museums to disclose descriptions of collection items as well as pointers to digital surrogates.

OAIHarvester 

OAIHarvester was an early attempt to write an OAI-PMH client application. It was replaced by the OAIHarvester2 project.

OAIHarvester2 

The OAIHarvester2 Open Source Software (OSS) project is a Java application that provides an OAI-PMH harvester framework.

PURL 

PURLs (Persistent Uniform Resource Locators) are Web addresses that act as permanent identifiers in the face of a dynamic and changing Web infrastructure.

SRW/U 

The SRW/U Open Source project offers software that implements both the SRW Web Service and the SRU REST model interface to databases. Included are interfaces that support DSpace and Lucene implementation and OCLC's Pears database.

Some of the activities listed here have prototypes or demonstrations you can explore and play with. You can find a list of just those hands-on activities in ResearchWorks.

A few of these activities have generated software that you can download and build upon. Go to our software page for a list of only those activities.

The RLG Partnership has sponsored the activities with this mark.