Use the OAI-PMH interface

Files:

• dspace-source/build/dspace-oai.war

• http://_web-address-to-my-dspace_/dspace-oai

  (OAI-PMH base URL)

Instructions:

1. Whenever you rebuild DSpace (see Rebuild DSpace ), the OAI-PMH (http://www.openarchives.org/pmh/) interface is automatically rebuilt into the dspace-oai.war. In order to enable the OAI-PMH interface, you just need to copy this dspace-oai.war file into your Tomcat/webapps/ directory. (It likely will already be there if you followed the installation directions completely).
2. If you've never used OAI-PMH before, there is a Beginner's Tutorial from the Open Archives Forum available at: http://www.oaforum.org/tutorial/
3. Here's a few basic OAI-PMH "verbs" (i.e. commands) you may wish to familiarize yourself with (all example DSpace URLs should be on a single line):
   • Identify - used to retrieve information about a repository:

     http://_web-address-to-my-dspace_/dspace-oai/request?verb=Identify

   • ListMetadataFormats - lists metadata formats supported for OAI-PMH:

     http://_web-address-to-my-dspace_/dspace-oai/request?verb=ListMetadataFormats

   • ListRecords - permits metadata harvesting of all or a selection of items:

     http://_web-address-to-my-dspace_/dspace-oai/request?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc

   • ListSets - lists the "sets" (i.e. DSpace Collections) available in a repository:

     http://_web-address-to-my-dspace_/dspace-oai/request?verb=ListSets

4. You may wish to register your Base URL (see Files list above) in the following locations, so that others may harvest your metadata and link back to your site:
   • DSpace OAI Listing: http://wiki.dspace.org/index.php/OaiInstallations
   • OAI-PMH Data Provider Registry: http://www.openarchives.org/data/registerasprovider.html
   • Directory of Open Access Repositories: http://www.opendoar.org/
   • Registry of Open Access Repositories: http://roar.eprints.org/
   • OAIster: http://www.oaister.org/

There's also a web interface available for browsing repositories via OAI-PMH (a hosted OAI client) called OAI Repository Explorer: http://re.cs.uct.ac.za/