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Author: Laurence D. Finston.
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The following copyright notice applies to the contents of this document up to
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Copyright © 2006, 2007 IWF Wissen und Medien gGmbH
The following copyright notice applies to all changes and additions to
this document starting on February 1, 2007:
Copyright © 2007 The Free Software Foundation
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Last updated: March 19, 2007
The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities are a package for retrieving metadata from servers, writing it to databases, and representing it in human-readable form. They currently retrieve data from servers using two different sets of standards: The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and Z39.50.
The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities contain code from the IWF Metadata
Harvester, a package developed by the
author while
participating in a programm sponsored by the German government at the
IWF Wissen und Media gGmbH, Göttingen, Germany.
Since this program ended on January 31, 2007, he is developing a new
package based on the IWF Metadata Harvester
under the name GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities
. The
author
would like to express his appreciation to the IWF Wissen und Media
gGmbH for permitting him to publish his work there under the
GNU General Public License
and the
GNU Free Documentation License.
OAI servers provide records in the form of XML files in a format based on the Dublin Core standard. Z39.50 servers, on the other hand, can provide records in a variety of formats, the most common of which is USMARC. The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities can currently only process records from z39.50 servers in the Pica format, which is widespread in the Netherlands and Germany. In the future, I hope to extend it to process records in USMARC and other formats as well.
The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities consist of 3 programs written in C++ and three databases:
| ATest: | C++ program for retrieving data from OAI servers (see ATest) |
| dc_test: | Database for storing the data retrieved by ATest (see dc_test) |
| ZTest: | C++ program for retrieving data in Pica format from Z39.50 servers (see ZTest) |
| PICA_DB: | Database for storing the data retrieved by ZTest (see PICA_DB) |
| Scantest: | C++ program implementing an interpreter for controlling the other C++ programs and accessing the databases. (see Scantest) |
| LO_DB: | A database with a reduced set of tables and fields for use in the “Lectures Online” Project of the IWF Wissen und Medien gGmbH (see LO_DB) |
The programs ATest and ZTest were developed using Microsoft Visual C++ in Microsoft Visual Studio under Microsoft Windows and the databases dc_test, PICA_DB and LO_DB were developed using Microsort SQL Servers. The program Scantest was also originally developed using MS Visual C++, but it is currently being developed using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) under Windows. Unlike ATest and ZTest, Scantest uses only Standard C++ and the C++ Standard Template Library.
2007.03.19.
The author is very pleased to announce that the
LDF Metadata Exchange Utilities have been accepted into the
GNU Project
of the
Free Software Foundation.
They have accordingly been renamed the GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities.
2007.02.18.
Added links to the CWEB documentation for the programs in
Documentation.
2007.02.12.
The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities contain code from the IWF Metadata
Harvester, a package developed by the
author while
participating in a programm sponsored by the German government at the
IWF Wissen und Media gGmbH, Göttingen, Germany.
Since this program ended on January 31, 2007, he is developing a new
package based on the IWF Metadata Harvester
under the name GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities
. The
author
would like to express his appreciation to the IWF Wissen und Media
gGmbH for permitting him to publish his work there under the
GNU General Public License
and the
GNU Free Documentation License.
2007.01.24.
All variables, functions, and parser rules in the Scantest package are now
documented its Texinfo manual. However, at present, there are few
explanations. I will try to add more as soon as possible.
The Scantest Manual in HTML format
The source code for the The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities is available from CVS repository for this project at the Savannah developers' website. The main web page for the IWF Metadata Harvester at Savannah is here.
Snapshots of the individual sub-packages are available in the form of compressed archive files (gzipped tar files):| ATest: | atestsnp.tar.gz |
| ZTest: | ztestsnp.tar.gz |
| Scantest: | sctstsnp.tar.gz |
There two user manuals for the The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities. The first documents the programs ATest and ZTest and the databases dc_test and PICA_DB. The second documents the program Scantest.
In addition, the programs ATest,
ZTest, and
Scantest have been written using
Donald Knuth
and Silvio Levy's
CWEB System of Structured Documentation
, and
are available in printable form (see below).
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Laurence Finston
email: lfinsto1-*-AT-*-gwdg.de
s246794-*-AT-*-stud.uni-goettingen.de
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