/research/software/default.htm

originally: http://www.oclc.org/research/software/default.htm

OCLC Research offers free software for the benefit of libraries, archives, and museums. The offerings include useful utilities for the development of library-oriented software and ready-to-use components for library systems. Most packages are open source, although some are offered under other licenses. Please be sure to check the license section of the Web page related to the specific software of interest. Open source offerings include source code and documentation, as well as the class files or binaries.

Licensing

Open source

Since 2006 we have issued open source software under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

Many earlier open source offerings were issued under the OCLC Research Public License 2.0 (PDF version; 130K/3pp.). Which license governs a given package is specified on the overview page for that package as well as in the software itself.

If you have or are interested in open source software licensed under one of the older licenses and would like to use it under the Apache license, please contact us – we may be able to update the software to use the Apache license.

Other licenses

For those few packages not issued under an open source license, the terms and conditions of use are summarized on the overview page and available in full before the end of the download process.

Feedback

We are always interested in hearing about your experiences using and enhancing our software. Please use the contact link below or on the individual software pages to send us your comments.

Ongoing development

Open source offerings are being further developed as Open Source Development projects. You may wish to contribute to the development of this software by becoming a member of one or more of these projects. The Open Source initiative is described in more detail on the OCLC Research Open Software Development page.

Open Source

2PageOAI A two-page OAI server in the Python programming language. Although done as an example of how little code it actually takes to support OAI-PMH, 2PageOAI implements a useful repository, and we've successfully validated repositories running this code.
DBUtils DBUtils includes utilities to support database programming. It includes packages for ber, Z39.50 and miscellaneous other utilities. See the DBUtils home page for a more complete description and download options.
ERRoL Resolver

ERRoLs are pointers to metadata, content, and services related to registered OAI repositories. Anyone can create or use ERRoLs to any metadata record or web resource related to supported OAI repositories. The open-source ERRoL distribution presented here contains a J2EE web application providing URL access to content and services related to a collection of local and/or distributed OAI repositories.

FRBR Work-Set Algorithm OCLC's FRBR Work-Set Algorithm is a step-by-step instruction for "FRBRizing" bibliographic databases to the "works" level. See OCLC Research's FRBR Work-Set Algorithm web page for a more complete description of OCLC research associated with this algorithm.
Gwen Gwen is a database search engine. It provides a boolean query evaluation package that sits above a database layer and beneath a Z39.50 server layer. A Gwen-to-Pears interface is included. See the Gwen Open Source home page for a more complete description of the project and download options.
OAICat OAICat is a Java Servlet to add OAI protocol support to existing data repositories. See the OAICat home page for a more complete description and download options.
OAICatMuseum 1.0 OAICatMuseum 1.0 is software which allows museums to disclose descriptions of collection items as well as pointers to digital surrogates. It can be used to efficiently share digital images with trusted partners who have requested access to museum content, or with the networked world at large. See the OAICatMuseum 1.0 home page for a more complete description and download options.
OAIHarvester OAIHarvester is a Java application to harvest OAI repositories. See the OAIHarvester home page for a more complete description and download options.
OAIHarvester2 OAIHarvester2 is a Java application providing a combined OAI-PMH v1.1 and v2.0 harvester framework. See the OAIHarvester2 home page for a more complete description and download options.
OpenURL 1.0

The OpenURL 1.0 protocol is a generalization of the popular OpenURL 0.1 protocol used to solve the appropriate-copy problem for scholarly publications. This implementation supports the full range of abstractions present in the 1.0 specification that takes it far beyond its 0.1 roots. See also the OpenURL Activities projects page.

Pears Pears is a text storage and indexing system. It includes software to build Pears databases. See the Pears home page for a more complete description of Pears databases, the Pears project and the access options.
RDF Topicmaps RDF Topicmaps is a proof-of-concept application intended to demonstrate the benefits of using automatically generated subject indexes to enhance discovery and navigation in a collection of web pages. Noun phrases are extracted from web pages and organized into topic relation maps encoded in RDF. A user interface for browsing and searching the topicmaps is also included in the package.
Scorpion Scorpion implements a system for automatically classifying Web-accessible text documents. Scorpion is intended for use by investigators who have a machine-readable subject classification scheme or thesaurus and wish to incorporate it into an automatic classification system.
SRW/U SRW/U Open Source software implements both the SRW Web Service and the SRU REST model interface to databases. It includes interfaces that support DSpace's Lucene implementation and OCLC's Pears and Newton databases.
Webutils Webutils includes utilities for harvesting the web and extracting metadata from the harvested html pages. See the Webutils home page for a more complete description and download options.
XSLTProc XSLTProc is a tool for distributing the management and use of arbitrary XSL stylesheets. The open-source Java Servlet provided here demonstrates an application of the model.

Other software

COBOAT COBOAT is a metadata extractor tool developed by Cognitive Applications Ltd., and extended as part of the Museum Data Exchange project to allow export of CDWA Lite XML from cultural heritage institutions' databases.

Contact

Software type Name E-mail
OCLC Research Open Source Software Thomas B. Hickey hickey@oclc.org
Other software offerings See Web page related to the individual offering.