> > As a slight aside, why might an OAI repository object to opening a
> > public z39.50 or SRW interface?
> But now it becomes a question like this: if you have a web server, why
> would you install a second web server to serve the same pages?
SRW and OAI serve different purposes.
Let say that I wanted to search your OAI repository from my own
bibliographic client (built into MS Office or OpenOffice or whatever)
rather than using your web based search forms for your OAI repository -
this isn't a federated search - just a single client talking to a single
OAI index.
One approach would be to have a common API for the bibliographic client
(or whatever) to talk to the OAI repository. SRW is such an API - not
surprisingly since its heritage is Z39.50 and this was the original
intent behind Z39.50 (federated searching came later).
Another would be for my bibliographic client to pull the metadata down
to the local machine and search it locally. However, if I'm at the end
of a ADSL connection at <2Mbit (or worse dial-up), and you have >100Mb
of data, I might lose patience.
Matthew
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