1. Atlas Systems
  2. ILLiad
  3. OpenURL

OpenURL Configuration

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Sara Juel
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ILLiad OpenURL is installed and functional as a part of the standard ILLiad Server installation. As a general rule, if your ILLiad web pages are functional, so is ILLiad OpenURL.

While the ILLiad side of OpenURL is functional immediately, additional configurations in your discovery resource (such as SFX, Serials Solutions, FirstSearch, etc.) is required in order to submit requests to ILLiad.

The OpenURLMapping Table

The OpenURLMapping table is pre-seeded with a setup that should work with most default OpenURL systems. If you need to change the behavior of how OpenURL interprets certain fields or genres, this is where you can make the changes. The OpenURLMapping table appears in the Customization Manager under Web Interface | OpenURL | OpenURLMapping. The OpenURLMapping table consists of the following fields:

NVTGC Used for Shared Server environments to separate the table into settings for the different sites. If you are editing the table through the Customization Manager, this value will be populated automatically based on the current site selected.
URL_Ver This field has a default value of Default and rarely needs to be changed. Additional entries can be configured in the OpenURLMapping table with modified URL_Ver values targeting a specific OpenURL version if you would like to have separate mappings available based on the version of OpenURL used to place the request. An example of the value for OpenURL version 1.0 would be "Z39.88-2004". 
rfr_id

This field has a default value of Default and rarely needs to be changed. Additional entries can be configured in the OpenURLMapping table with modified rfr_id values if you would like to have separate mappings available based on the source of the OpenURL link used to place the request.

For example, to have all requests of a specified OpenURL genre considered a Book when submitted from FirstSearch, but to have those same requests considered an Article when submitted from Ovid, you could configure separate OpenURLMapping table entries for each of these behaviors with the rfr_id setting on the entries specifying which mappings to use for FirstSearch and which mappings to use for Ovid. 

Please contact your OpenURL source provider to determine the rfr_id value that should be used for that source. An example of the value used for FirstSearch is info:sid/firstsearch.oclc.org:WorldCat. This value will be stored in the CitedIn field in ILLiad if it is passed over via OpenURL (with the info:sid/ part removed). 
ILLiadAction

Three actions requiring separate OpenURLMapping table entries are used to convert an OpenURL request to an ILLiad request:

As these three actions work in conjunction with each other, please ensure that you create separate entries for each ILLiadAction below when adding new entries to the OpenURLMapping table targeting a specific rfr_id or URL_Ver value.
  • Substitute:genre: This action is used to set the RequestType (Article or Loan) and DocumentType (Article, Book, etc.) for the generated request in ILLiad and to specify the ILLiad web request form that should be used to place the request based on the genre for the item passed via OpenURL. When configuring this action:
    • The ILLiadFieldName field for the entry must be set to RequestType. 
    • The OpenURLFieldValues field for the entry should be set to the genre returned by OpenURL (e.g., article, book, or conference) or to a value of default, which will match any genre not specifically listed in another entry.

    • The ILLiadValue for the entry should be configured to specify the ILLiad RequestType and DocumentType that should be set for incoming requests of that genre and the HTML request form that should be used to place those requests on the ILLiad web interface. This value must be configured in the format: RequestType:DocumentType:HTMLRequestPageToUse (e.g., Loan:Book:LoanRequest.html)

  • Substitute:rft.genre: This action functions and is configured the same way as the Substitute:genre action, but is used specifically with OpenURL version 1.0.

    When adding new genre mappings to the OpenURLMapping table, you should create one entry for that genre using the Substitute:genre action and a separate identical entry for that genre using the Substitute:rft.genre action to ensure all potential OpenURL versions are handled by ILLiad.
  • Replace: This action sets the ILLiad field that will be used to store the OpenURL information that is sent via the OpenURL link. A separate Replace entry should be created for each individual ILLiad field used to hold the data sent via OpenURL. When configuring this action:
    • The ILLiadFieldName field for the entry should be set to the name of the ILLiad field that will be used to store the data passed from the OpenURL link.

    • The OpenURLFieldValues field for the entry should be set to the OpenURL field that will be used to pass the desired information from the OpenURL link into that ILLiad field.

      This value must be formatted as <#OpenURLTagName>. See the OpenURLFieldValues documentation below for more information on additional formatting options for this value.
    • The ILLiadValue field for the entry does not need a value and can be left blank.
    • For example, if the ILLiadFieldName is set to Edition and the OpenURLFieldValues value is set to <#rft.edition>, the value in the Edition field on the ILLiad request record will be replaced with the data passed through the OpenURL link via the rft.edition field. 
ILLiadFieldName
  • For entries with an ILLiadAction value of Replace, this should be set to the name of the ILLiad field that will be populated by the OpenURL field configured in the OpenURLFieldValues column. 
  • For entries with ILLiadAction values of Substitute:genre or Substitute:rft.genre, this must be set to RequestType.
See the ILLiadAction documentation above for more detailed guidance on configuring the ILLiadFieldName for each action.
OpenURLFieldValues

  • For entries with an ILLiadAction value of Replace, this should be set to the name of the OpenURL field that will populate the value in the ILLiad field configured in the ILLiadFieldName column.

    The OpenURL field must be formatted as <#OpenURLTagName> (e.g., <#rft.edition>). Other text is also allowed. For example, in the case of an author's name, you can separate the last name and first name with a comma and a space, i.e., <#rft.aulast>, <#rft.aufirst>. 
  • For entries with ILLiadAction values of Substitute:genre or Substitute:rft.genre, this should be set to the OpenURL genre (article, book, bookitem, etc.) that should map to the ILLiad RequestType and DocumentType indicated in the ILLiadValue column for the entry. 
See the ILLiadAction documentation above for more detailed guidance on configuring the OpenURLFieldValues for each action.

Assigning Multiple OpenURL Values to the Same ILLiad Field 

Entries in the OpenURLMapping table configured to use the ILLiadAction 'Replace' can have separate OpenURL values assigned to the same ILLiad field in a single OpenURLMapping table entry. This is useful for handling different OpenURL mappings that end up going to the same ILLiad fields.

You can separate these values with a pipe character (|). When ILLiad sees the pipe, it interprets everything up to that point in the expression. If it has no values for the OpenURL fields up to that point in the expression, then it continues and uses the next expression. If it already has a value, including a blank value, then it ignores everything after the pipe. You can have as many pipe/field value combinations as you need.

Example:

This example uses the default OpenURLFieldValues configuration in the OpenURLMapping table entry for the LoanAuthor field:

<#rft.au>|<#rft.aulast>, <#rft.aufirst> <#rft.auinitm>|<#aulast>, <#aufirst> <#auinitm>

  1. If the first part, <#rtf.au>, has a value, then that is what is sent back to ILLiad.
  2. If not, then ILLiad looks at the second part: <#rft.aulast>, <#rft.aufirst> <#rft.auinitm>. If any part of that has a value, then it is used.
  3. If not, then ILLiad uses the last expression: <#aulast>, <#aufirst> <#auinitm>.
  4. If none of the OpenURL values are returned, then ILLiad puts no value into the field.
ILLiadValue

The ILLiadValue field must be configured only for entries using an ILLiadAction type of Substitute:genre or Substitute:rft.genre. See the ILLiadAction documentation above for more detailed guidance on configuring the appropriate ILLiadValue for these actions.

Entries with action types of Replace do not need a value configured in this field. 

Formatting Options for Dates

Because the date formatting can vary from one resource to another, ILLiad has the ability to parse the date correctly from the resource record to the ILLiad request form by editing the OpenURLMapping table in the Customization Manager. The following configuration will parse out the year from the referring record into the ILLiad request as a 4-digit value:

  1. In the Customization Manager, navigate to Web Interface | OpenURL | OpenURLMapping
  2. Find the record for PhotoJournalYear and double-click to open the editing window
  3. Add DATE|yyyy to the ILLiadValue field
  4. Save the change by clicking into another field and then clicking the Save button

OpenURLDateTimeMapping.png

Additional Formatting Options

The OpenURLMapping table entry can also be configured to parse other date and time formats:

Questions?

If this article didn’t resolve your issue, please contact Atlas Support for assistance:

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