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About Umlaut

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=WARNING: This is Outdated Documentation!!!!= '''THIS IS OUTDATED DOCUMENTATION''' See new Umlaut documentation at http://github.com/team-umlaut/umlaut--------- [[Category:Umlaut]] __NOTOC__ Umlaut is an open source project originally developed by [[Ross Singer ]] while at Georgia Tech, and subsequently worked on quite a bit by Jonathan Rochkind of Johns Hopkins University. Umlaut is sometimes called a “link-resolver front end” or a “middle-tier link resolver”. In fact, the Umlaut is a link resolver, in the sense that it receives [[OpenURL ]] requests–usually representing a citation for a scholarly work–and responds with information on services available related to that citation–most significantly, with electronic availability. However, unlike most typical link resolver products (such as [[SFX]]), the Umlaut does not manage it’s its own “knowledge base” of information on what titles an institution possesses from what vendors, and how to link to them. Umlaut relies on SFX–accessed through the [[SFX API–for API]]–for that information and service.
==User Interface Flexibility==
Umlaut provides a great deal of flexibility with the user interface. Despite any changes to SFX our interface should keep working with little or no modification. It also gives us flexibility to create interfaces that would have been difficult or impossible to create solely through the SFX template system.
 
==Direct Linking to Full-Text==
For instance, when a user clicks on a link resolver link, they can be taken directly to the article they want, not just to a menu. Umlaut provides a menu in a frame at the top in case the link didn’t work and they need other options, or in case they want to access other link resolver services despite having the full text.
==Physical Holdings==
Umlaut still provides a ‘full’ link resolver menu too, which the user can choose to see, and which is shown when no full text is available. The menu provides location and availability information on physical holdings directly on the screen–no click necessary to see it (at least when there’s an ISSN match; if there’s no ISSN or ISBN match, a link is provided to a keyword search in the catalog instead). See http://findit.library.jhu.edu/go/30504329602?umlaut.skip_resolve_menu=false for an example. It also imports any URLs found in our catalog in a MARC 856 field, in addition to those in SFX.
==Relevant Links==
==Check for Public Access Versions==
To discover if an open access version of an item is available, Umlaut does an author/title keyword search of IndexData’s indexes of [[OAISter ]] and [[Open Content Alliance ]] freely available text.. This is imperfect because all we can do is an author title keyword search. But when it works, it’s cool.
==OPAC Integration==
More nearer term, additional features I want to add to Umlaut include:
* Rochester “Getting Users Fulltext” style code to skip right to the full text, skipping content-provider metadata pages. * Google Books search to complement the OCA and Gutenberg searches I’ve got. * connection Connection to OCLC Identities * [[xISBN]]/[[thingISBN ]] use. (Some thought is required in how to integrate this while avoiding false positives). Bowker ISSN service for metadata enhancement. OCLC xISSN? Integrate preceding/succeeding title information from OPAC or xISSN? * Integrate my various local document delivery services into menu of options when full text isn’t available.
==Are you interested in working with Umlaut?==
For those looking for technical details to give our Umlaut the run-through, the base url is:
http://findit.library.jhu.edu/resolve [[Category: Umlaut]]

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