Umlaut (software)

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Umlaut is an open source front-end for a link resolver for libraries, which deals with advertising services for specific known citations. It runs as Ruby on Rails application via an engine gem. Umlaut accepts requests in OpenURL format, but has no knowledge base of its own, and is intended to be used as a front-end for an existing knowledge base. Currently only SFX is supported (using the SFX API [1] ), but other plugins can be written.

Contents

How it works

Umlaut accepts an OpenURL query and the user's IP address, and determines if there are available link resolvers for that address. Umlaut then tries to enrich the item metadata by querying additional sources of information depending on what the original request includes. [2]

Examples

Related Research Articles

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Umlaut may refer to:

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An OpenURL knowledge base is an extensive database containing information about electronic resources such as electronic journals or ebooks and their availability and accessibility. Using the knowledge base, an OpenURL link resolver can determine if an item is available electronically and what the appropriate copy for a user is.

References

  1. Rochkind, Jonathan (2008). "Umlaut: An Open Source Link Resolver Front End". ELUNA 2008, 30 July - 1 August 2008, Long Beach, CA.
  2. Tennant, Roy (Nov 15, 2006). "Linking, Not Thinking". Library Journal. 131 (19): 32.