Notes, information and links about the MetaLib X-Server and how it relates to Metasearch in Sakaibrary should go here.
X-Server Service Flow Diagram
Copyright Information
The portion of the following diagram outlined in red is a modified work of the California Digital Library (CDL) and is taken from the document, CDL MetaLib Access Through XML (MAX), version 0.4.
In the CDL portion of the diagram, there are four different layers depicted: Client, Service, Manager and X-Server.
- the Client Layer describes general services a client may need from a Federation Service (i.e. the MetaLib X-Server).
- the Service Layer provides a framework common to all Federation Services. Methods such as
FedConnect
,FedResource
,FedQuery
andFedResults
should be common to all Federation Services such as metasearch engines like MetaLib or SIRSI SingleSearch. - the Manager Layer is a layer between the Federation Service Layer and a specific Federation Service, such as the MetaLib X-Server. This layer allows the Federation Service to access the services of diverse Federation Services.
- the X-Server Layer lists the specific services provided by the MetaLib X-Server and how they map to the Manager and Service Layers.
The X-Services Walkthrough section provides more detail on the specific X-Services provided by the X-Server. For full details about each X-Service, please see the MetaLib X-Server API documentation or the Appendix section in the CDL MetaLib Access Through XML (MAX), version 0.4 document. The Appendix of the CDL MAX document provides an in-depth summary of each X-Service whereas the X-Server documentation provides the full specifications from ExLibris.
The Potential Repository Components section provides data structures produced by the X-Server that could be stored as Assets, Records, or Parts in a O.K.I. Repository OSID implementation. This section of the diagram will be updated as we decide on how to map the specific data structures to Repository Components such as Assets, Records and Parts.
Similar X-Server Work
Much of the above content is derived from the CDL MetaLib Access through XML (MAX) project. The work being done on this project parallels the work being done with the MetaLib X-Server in the Sakaibrary project.
Links
- MetaLib X-Server API documentation - listing of available MetaLib X-Services and their details.
- MetaLib X-Server code samples - UM Library Information Technology Web Services code samples (in Perl) for using the X-Server. UM Library login required.