October 10, 2008
djatoka and the OpenURL Object Model (OOM)
About two years ago, I announced an open-source alpha Java implementation of OpenURL 1.0 called the OpenURL Object Model (OOM). Beyond a few cryptic blog posts, documentation was non-existent. But since the Java classes reflected the OpenURL 1.0 data model, it was theoretically possible for someone familiar with OpenURL to make use of them.
To prove this unlikely claim, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Research Library recently announced djatoka, an open-source JPEG 2000 image server. I especially like that djatoka challenges the prevailing conception that OpenURL is just a citation-linking mechanism. These folks obvious understand OpenURL inside and out, but I am still amazed that they used OOM for their low-level infrastructure with little more than its source code to guide them. That is hard core!
The fact that two years has elapsed since I announced the alpha version of OOM does not mean I have forgotten about it. On the contrary, OOM was immediately employed as the foundation for the WorldCat Registry and has been handling new use cases with barely a flinch ever since. Granted, the WorldCat Registry may not look like an OpenURL resolver on its surface, but thanks to djatoka it may now be possible for people to believe there is more potential to OpenURL than its citation-linking history suggests.
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