Setting Up OAI Integration
The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is a low-barrier mechanism for developing and promoting inter-operability standards that aim to facilitate efficient dissemination of content across repositories. Data Providers are repositories that expose structured metadata through OAI-PMH. Service Providers then make OAI-PMH service requests to harvest that metadata. OAI-PMH uses six request types (“verbs”) that are invoked within HTTP. Using this functionality, Alma can publish metadata (as a Data Provider) that can then be harvested by external tools/repositories (Data Harvesters).
Configuring an OAI integration profile is the first step toward publishing through OAI. Configuring an OAI integration profile enables Alma to expose the records as OAI types and harvest them accordingly.
Once you configured the OAI integration profile, you can set up a publishing profile. When that is complete, your OAI setup should be complete and your database ready to load. For information on setting up a publishing OAI profile, see Publishing and Inventory Enrichment.
If your institution already has an OAI integration profile, you cannot add a second one. However, you can edit the existing one.
See Making the Alma Repository Available via OAI for more information.
To set up an OAI integration profile:
- On the Integration Profile List page (Configuration Menu > General > External Systems > Integration Profiles), select Add Integration Profile. The first step of the two-step Integration Wizard appears.
- From the Integration Type drop-down menu, select OAI Repository Definition (do not select the code and the name). The page refreshes with relevant fields for the profile.
The Default checkbox is not functional for this integration type.Refreshed Page One of the Integration Profile for OAI
- Enter an optional Description for the integration profile, and select Next. Step 2 of the integration profile wizard appears.
If you have previously configured an OAI integration profile, you are prompted to edit the existing profile.Integration Profile Wizard Page 2 (Parameters)
- Enter OAI Repository Definitions as required:
- Active / Inactive (required) - Select Active.
- Repository Name - The repository when calling the OAI API.
- Repository Base URL - The fixed, auto-generated base URL for all OAI links, not editable.
- Protocol Version - The protocol version used. The version is automatically entered for this parameter and is not editable.
- Admin Email (required) - The email address where you want communications related to the integration profile to be sent.
- Earliest Datestamp (required) - The first date stamp of the repository records (which can be used, for example, when querying the repository by date).
- Deleted Record - This is automatically identified as transient and is not editable.
- Granularity - The data/timestamp granularity is automatically identified as YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ and is not editable. See ISO 8601 for an explanation of this format.
- Metadata Prefixes - Select to open a page enable or disable prefixes. This page is a mapping table; for more information, see Mapping Tables. You can only enable or disable prefixes on this page.
- Allowed IPs - Select to open a page to configure IP ranges for users/locations who can access the repository. This page is a mapping table (see Mapping Tables for more information). You can add, edit, or delete ranges on this page. For an IP range, use a hyphen with no spaces (-) between strings (Syntax corrections are noted in error messages). Allowed IPs are the IP addresses/ranges that have access to Alma OAI. Any IP that is not in this list gets an error response when one tries to access the Alma OAI. If no IP is defined in this mapping table, no one can access Alma via OAI requests.
- OAI Schema - This is identified as oai and is not editable.
- Delimiter - The delimiter is identified as a colon (:) and is not editable.
- Repository Identifier - Enter a string that identifies the repository that is compliant with OAI-PMH requirements. The value should contain two strings with no special characters, separated by a period (for example, 01BC.INST).
- Max bulk size for ListIdentifiers request (required) - A value from 100 to 900 is specified by Ex Libris. Contact Support to change this setting.
- Max bulk size for ListRecords request (required) - A value from 100 to 900 is specified by Ex Libris. Contact Support to change this setting.
- Select Save to complete the profile.
Because Alma allows for only one OAI setting, if you want to change anything in the integration profile, you must select Edit from the Actions menu and edit the existing profile.