README For Sample OAI Implementation

This is a simple, illustrative implementation of the OAI metadata protocol, using Microsoft Windows NT server technologies. This is not intended as a turnkey OAI solution, but as a learning aid or kickstart for people who might be implementing OAI in a Windows NT server environment.

MS Windows NT 4 Server

MS Internet Information Server (IIS) 4

MS Active Server Pages (ASP),

programmed in VBScript and JScript

MS ActiveX Data Objects (ADODB)

For illustration we are using a MS Access Database with Stored Procedures. However, with minor changes, a MS SQL Server database or other data source could be used as well.

Note: For experimentation you could probably get this to work on other Microsoft platforms as well, such as Windows 98 with Personal Web Server, or Windows 2000, but we have not tested this.

As installed locally, the system has passed the Repository Explorer tests at http://rocky.dlib.vt.edu/~oai/cgi-bin/Explorer/oai1.0/testoai. However, your results may vary. If you discover any problems, please let us know.

In addition to the oai_dc metadata format, we also support a custom variation of the Dublin Core Qualified format. The metadata prefix is uiuc_dcq. The XML schema for that format is included with this package. This implementation of DCQ is illustrative only and in no way is the XML schema provided authoritative.

Oai.asp

The main Active Server Page script code. Most code is written in VBScript, but a small amount of JScript is also used. The code relies on stored database procedures and ActiveX Data Objects (ADODB) for data access.

SimpleDCQMetaData.mdb

An Access database containing sample metadata. Refer to the database itself for the data schema and stored procedures.

Uiuc_dcq.xsd

An XML Schema for our implementation of Dublin Core Qualified. To request with data in this schema use the uiuc_dcq metadataPrefix.

oai.log

A log of all transactions handled by the Oai.asp script. Unless disabled, all OAI transactions, including errors, will be logged to this file.

README.txt

This text file.

You should install all of these files into a single directory on an NT Web Server machine. Then create a virtual web server directory that points to this physical path. Make sure that this virtual directory allows scripting access and is an active application. That should be about it.

Thomas G. Habing

Research Programmer, Digital Library Initiative
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
052 Grainger Engineering Library, MC-274
thabing@uiuc.edu

Timothy W. Cole

Mathematics Librarian
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
214 Altgeld Hall, MC-382
t-cole3@uiuc.edu