Back in 2007, I had a different job, different email address and lived in a different state. Things change. If people are sending emails to ross.sin...@gatech.edu to fix the library web services, they are going to be sorely disappointed and should perhaps check http://www.library.gatech.edu/about/staff.php for updates.
purl.org has been going through a massive architecture change for the better part of a year now -- which has finally been completed. It was a slightly messy transition but they migrated from their homegrown system to one designed by Zepheira. I feel like predicting the demise of HTTP and worrying about a services' ability to handle other protocols is unnecessary hand wringing. I still have a telephone (two, in fact). Both my cell phone and VOIP home phone are still able to communicate flawlessly with a POTS dial phone. My car still has an internal combustion engine based on petroleum. It still doesn't fly or even hover. My wall outlets still accept a plug made in the 1960s. PURLs themselves are perfectly compatible with protocols other than HTTP: http://purl.org/NET/rossfsinger/ftpexample The caveat being that the initial access point is provided via HTTP. But then again, so is http://hdl.handle.net/, which, in fact, the only way currently in practice to dereference handles. My point is, there's a lot of energy, resources and capital invested in HTTP. Even if it becomes completely obsolete, my guess I can still type "http://purl.org/dc/terms"; in spdy://google.com/ and find something about what I'm looking for. -Ross. On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 12:18 PM, Han, Yan <h...@u.library.arizona.edu> wrote: > Please explain in more details, that will be more helpful. > It has been a while. Back to 2007, I checked PURL's architecture, and it was > straightly handling web addresses only. Of course, current HTTP protocol is > not going to last forever, and there are other protocols in the Internet. The > coverage of PURL is not enough. > From PURL's website, it still says " PURLs (Persistent Uniform Resource > Locators) are Web addresses that act as permanent identifiers in the face of > a dynamic and changing Web infrastructure." I am not sure what "web > addresses" means. http://www.purl.org/docs/help.html#overview says " PURLs > are Persistent Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). A URL is simply an address > on the World Wide Web". We all know that "World Wide Web" is not "the > Internet". What if info resource can be accessed through other Internet > Protocols (FTP, VOIP, ....)? This is the limitation of PURL. > PURL is doing re-architecture, though I cannot find out more documentation. > The Handle system is " The Handle System is a general purpose distributed > information system that provides efficient, extensible, and secure HDL > identifier and resolution services for use on networks such as the > Internet.". http://www.handle.net/index.html Notice the difference in > definition. > > Yan > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Ross > Singer > Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 8:11 PM > To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Assigning DOI for local content > > On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 12:19 PM, Han, Yan <h...@u.library.arizona.edu> wrote: >> Currently DOI uses Handle (technology) with it social framework (i.e. >> administrative body to manage DOI). In technical sense, PURL is not going to >> last long. > > I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to mean (re: purl), but > I'm pretty sure it's not true. > > I'm also pretty sure there's little to no direct connection between > purl and doi despite a superficial similarity in scope. > > -Ross. >
