[PADG:1590] OpenURL Standardization Moving Forward

["Marilyn Geller" <marilyn.geller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bethesda, Md., USA ? (February 11, 2002) NISO, the National Information
Standards Organization, reports that Committee AX, the NISO standards
committee that is preparing the OpenURL Standard, met on January 24th and
25th at the CNRI headquarters in Reston, Virginia and continues to make
significant progress.

Eric Van de Velde, the committee chair, summing up progress to date said
that existing applications of OpenURL technology only scratch the surface of
what else is feasible. Currently, we apply OpenURL technology to
bibliographic citations. In the near future, we may apply it to many other
types of information: subject headings, legal documents, biological (genome
sequences), etc. Currently, we encode OpenURL in an HTTP GET or POST format.
In the near future, we may encode OpenURL links in XML. Currently, we think
of OpenURL links being provided by specific information providers. In the
near future, third parties may provide OpenURL links for any information
resource. With these and other opportunities yet to be explored, it is
obvious that OpenURL is a technology in its infancy, and we should think of
the emerging OpenURL standard as the beginning of a long-term evolutionary
process.

To insure that progress made so far will continue to have value, the
committee adopted the OpenURL draft originally submitted to NISO as Version
0.1 of the standard.  This document is available as part of the official
record on the committee?s web site.  For complete details and background
information, please refer to the OpenURL web site at
http://library.caltech.edu/openurl.


About NISO:
NISO is the only U.S. group accredited by the American National Standards
Institute to develop and promote technical standards for use in information
delivery services providing voluntary standards for libraries, publishers
and related information technology organizations.  All NISO standards are
developed by consensus under the guidance of experts and practitioners in
the field to meet the needs of both the information user and the producer.
For information about NISO?s current standardization interests and
membership possibilities, please visit the NISO website at
http://www.niso.org.

For additional information contact NISO Headquarters at (301) 654-2512.
Email: nisohq@xxxxxxxx