Introduction to the open archives initiative protocol for metadata harvesting

The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) [1] is a relatively new interoperability standard that is gaining much attention from existing and new digital libraries. It is currently advocated by many communities (including NDLTD, NCSTRL, and NSDL) to fulfill their metadata interoperability requirements.This tutorial is aimed at introducing individuals to the concepts underlying the OAI and the harvesting protocol, as well as providing sufficient information to allow attendees to almost immediately implement the current standard (OAI-PMH v2.0) on their own archives or in their own communities. Attendees will be introduced to both organizational and technical issues that need to be addressed when building new systems or extending existing systems, either in the capacity of being providers of data, users of data, or both. Wherever appropriate, references will be made to best practices that have emerged in the community of OAI implementers since the initial release of the protocol. Attendees will also be familiarized with tools developed within the OAI community to support the implementation of the protocol.