Page 193 - Building Digital Libraries

CHAPTER 7

<set>
<setSpec>hdl_1811_54723</setSpec>
<setName>13th Denman Undergraduate Research Forum (2008)</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>hdl_1811_54722</setSpec>
<setName>14th Denman Undergraduate Research Forum (2009)</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>hdl_1811_24843</setSpec>
<setName>1563 Edition Selected Stories (John Foxe's Actes
and Monuments)</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>hdl_1811_24844</setSpec>
<setName>1563 Edition Selected Woodcuts (John Foxe's Actes
and Monuments)</setName>
</set>
<set>
<setSpec>hdl_1811_24845</setSpec>
<setName>1570 Edition Selected Stories (John Foxe's Actes
and Monuments)</setName>
</set>
</ListSets>
</OAI-PMH>

OAI-PMH Application
With only five verbs and a limited set of arguments, OAI-PMH
presents a low-barrier method for digital repositories to make
their metadata harvestable to the world. And while many peo-
ple, including the authors, feel that digital repositories should
make their metadata harvestable to the outside world, the obvi-
ous question for digital repository implementers is, what’s in it
for me? Obviously, metadata harvesting requires the allocation
of resources to the harvesting process, since the harvesting of
large repositories could mean the transfer of hundreds of mega-
bytes of data. The Oregon State University institutional reposi-
tory, for example, requires the transfer of about fifty megabytes
of data if one was to harvest all of the available metadata. This
type of data transfer could very easily start to consume sig-
nificant resources if harvesting was done regularly, by multiple
institutions. So while harvestable metadata may make one a
good neighbor within the current information ecosystem, it
does come at a real cost. So what benefits can an organization
glean from supporting an OAI-PMH server?

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