OpenURL Configuration

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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 is automatic.
URL_Ver This field has a default value of "Default". If you wanted to have separate mappings available based on the version of OpenURL being used, you could force that to happen by adding entries for a specific OpenURL Version. With the flexibility of the OpenURLFieldValue field below, this functionality isn't used in the default setup. You should rarely if ever need to change the value for this field from Default, but an example of the value for OpenURL version 1.0 would be "Z39.88-2004". The value is one that's passed from the source database through OpenURL and may vary.
rfr_id This field has a default value of "Default" and rarely should need to be changed. If you wanted to have separate mappings available based on the source of the OpenURL link, you could choose to set that up here. For example, if you want the default request that comes in from FirstSearch without a Genre to be a Book, and you want the default request that comes in from Ovid without a Genre to be an article, you can set different rfr_id settings for each one. Note: If you decide to specify an rfr_id value for a particular source and ILLiadFieldName, you will also need to specify a corresponding URL_Ver value. In addition, if you specify one rfr_id value for a particular source and ILLiadFieldName, you must also specify that same rfr_id for all other ILLiadFieldNames in the table. This value is one that your OpenURL source provider can help you find should you need to make this change. An example of the value from FirstSearch is "info:sid/firstsearch.oclc.org:WorldCat" but this value also gets stored in the CitedIn field in ILLiad if it is passed over OpenURL (with the info:sid/ part removed).
ILLiadAction

ILLiadAction can have 3 values:

  • Replace - the ILLiad field represented in the ILLiadFieldName field is replaced with the data from the OpenURLFieldValues field. For example, if the ILLiadFieldName is set to LoanEdition, the OpenURLFieldValues is set to <#rft.edition> - For more information on the OpenURLFieldValues field, see below.
  • Substitute:genre - This is used to set the RequestType, DocumentType, and the request form to use in ILLiad. The only valid ILLiadFieldName is RequestType. The OpenURLFieldValues field equates to the genre returned by OpenURL (article, book, conference). This field can also have the value of "default", which matches any genre not specifically listed. The ILLiadValue field has three parts, separated by colons: RequestType:DocumentType:HTMLRequestPageToUse.
  • Substitute:rft.genre - This tag does the same thing as the prior Substitute:genre tag, but is used for OpenURL version 1.0. It is recommended that if you add a new genre, you add entries for both Substitute:genre and Substitute:rft.genre.
ILLiadFieldName For ILLiadAction = Replace - This field corresponds to the ILLiad field to store the OpenURL information that is sent via the OpenURL link. For ILLiadAction = Substitute:genre or Substitute:rft.genre - This field must have the value RequestType.
OpenURLFieldValues

For ILLiadAction = Replace - This field has tags that are replaced with OpenURL information from the OpenURL link. Tags are in the format <#tagname>. Other text is allowed, so in the case of an Authors Name, you can separate the last name and first name with a comma and a space. Finally, you can have separate OpenURL values assigned to the same ILLiad field. This is useful for handling different OpenURL mappings that end up going to the same ILLiad fields. You can separate these 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. Some examples: This example has 3 parts. If the first part, <#rtf.au>, has a value, then that is what is sent back to ILLiad. 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. If not, then ILLiad uses the last expression: <#aulast>, <#aufirst> <#auinitm>. <#rft.au>|<#rft.aulast>, <#rft.aufirst> <#rft.auinitm>|<#aulast>, <#aufirst> <#auinitm> Another example of how ILLiad handles both the old and new OpenURL versions together is LoanDate. If ILLiad sees the new tag, <#rft.date> then it uses that, if not, it uses <#date>. <#rft.date>|<#date> In either case, if none of the OpenURL values are returned, then ILLiad puts no value into the field. For ILLiadAction = Substitute:genre or Substitute:rft.genre - the ILLiadFieldName is equal to the OpenURL genre field (article, book, bookitem, conference, etc.). This can also be a value of "default" which will be the default genre.

ILLiadValue This is only used with ILLiadAction = Substitute:genre or Substitute:rft:genre. The ILLiadValue is actually 3 values, separated by colons. The first value is the ILLiad RequestType - either Article or Loan. The second value is the ILLiad DocumentType (Article, Book, Book Chapter, Conference, etc.). The third value is the ILLiad HTML page for OpenURL to use for that genre (ArticleRequest.html, LoanRequest.html, BookChapterRequest.html, etc.). For example, if the genre is book, then the ILLiadValue would be Loan:Book:LoanRequest.html.

Mapping for Date

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 from by editing the OpenURL Mapping 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 click the Save button.

The OpenURL mapping can be configured to parse other Date and Time formats.

Questions?

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