Re: [CODE4LIB] Call for comments: OPDS Catalogs 0.9 draft, an Atom-based standard for ebook distribution

2010-05-13 Thread Ed Summers 
Hi Karen,

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Karen Coyle  wrote:
> but I would have expected to see a title data element listed somewhere. Is
> dc assumed? Or is the bibliographic description scheme an open question?

The nice thing about Atom is that it allows you to layer in whatever
you want namespace wise into the atom:entry. So yes, you could put
MARCXML, MODS, DCTERMS, RDF/XML, etc into an atom:entry with no
problem.  This flexibility of Atom allows OPDS to be used in multiple
bibliographic metadata environments, and allows it to accommodate
change.

That being said, since OPDS uses Atom, the rules for atom:entry
elements still apply. In section 4.1.2 of RFC 4287 [1] you'll see this
requirement about titles:

atom:entry elements MUST contain exactly one atom:title element.

There are other requirements from Atom that are also relevant.
Unfortunately it's not really practical for the OPDS spec to repeat
all the details of RFC 4287. However, it is more than likely that
there will be an OPDS Primer or Cookbook that provides practical
guidance on using OPDS. If you feel strongly that there should be more
guidance on the bibliographic metadata in the spec I encourage you to
open an issue ticket [2].

Thanks for the feedback!
//Ed

[1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4287.txt
[2] http://code.google.com/p/openpub/issues/list

Re: [CODE4LIB] Call for comments: OPDS Catalogs 0.9 draft, an Atom-based standard for ebook distribution

2010-05-13 Thread Karen Coyle 

Quoting Ed Summers :


Folks involved in the Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS)
effort are seeking feedback on the latest version of the spec [1] from
the publishing and library communities--and specifically from the
library-tech oriented code4lib subscribers. The goal is to gather
enough feedback for a v1.0 release mid-2010.



Ed, it could just be that I missed it in the document, but I don't see  
a full(-ish) list of data elements. There is the statement that  
partial entries should have at least these data elements:


* atom:category
* atom:rights
* dc:extent
* dc:identifier
* dc:issued
* dc:language
* dc:publisher
* opds:price
* prism:issue
* prism:volume

but I would have expected to see a title data element listed  
somewhere. Is dc assumed? Or is the bibliographic description scheme  
an open question?


kc

--
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234  
begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  1-510-435-8234  end_of_the_skype_highlighting

skype: kcoylenet

[CODE4LIB] Call for comments: OPDS Catalogs 0.9 draft, an Atom-based standard for ebook distribution

2010-05-13 Thread Ed Summers 
Folks involved in the Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS)
effort are seeking feedback on the latest version of the spec [1] from
the publishing and library communities--and specifically from the
library-tech oriented code4lib subscribers. The goal is to gather
enough feedback for a v1.0 release mid-2010.

If you haven't run across it yet, OPDS is a simple pattern for using
Atom to make "catalogs" of ebooks (and their metadata) available.
Personally, I think it is a critical piece of infrastructure for the
rapidly expanding ebook marketplace, that allows reading devices and
publishers/distributors to participate in a shared and collaborative
ecosystem that is built on the web. Incidentally, I think OPDS also
showcases how to use Atom to share metadata about books as well, akin
to Jangle [2]. It also bears a striking resemblance to the Google Book
API [3]. In short, if you publishing or consume ebooks on the web you
should definitely take a look.

More information regarding OPDS, and where to send your
comments/suggestions/fixes is below in the announcement from Keith
Fahlgren. Of course, discussion on code4lib is welcome as well.

//Ed

The OPDS Catalogs 0.9 draft [1] is now ready for your review and we'd
love to get your feedback and comments. Please submit any and all
critiques or comments to the openpub mailing list [4] or add an issue
[5] by 19 May 2010.

What are OPDS Catalogs?

OPDS stands for "Open Publication Distribution System" and OPDS
Catalogs enable the aggregation, distribution, and discovery of books,
journals, and other digital content by any user, from any source, in
any electronic format, on any device. The OPDS Catalogs specification
is based on the Atom syndication format and prioritizes simplicity and
speed.

Is this vaporware?

Nope. The OPDS Catalogs 0.9 draft is based on a lot of existing,
in-production software and collaboration between ebook reading
systems, publishers, and distributors. Feedbooks, for example, already
distributes more than 2 million ebooks every month using its OPDS
Catalogs (http://feedbooks.com/catalog.atom) and ebook readers like
Aldiko, Stanza, QuickReader, FBReader, Ibis Reader, and others already
support the evolving specification. Publishers and libraries have been
early adopters of the OPDS Catalogs as the specification has evolved
toward 0.9 as well. Some highlights:

* Internet Archive: 1.8 million free books [6]
* O'Reilly Media: hundreds of technical ebooks [7]
* PragPub Magazine, from The Pragmatic Programmers [8]
* Smashwords [9]

OPDS Catalogs are the first component in the Internet Archive’s
BookServer Project [10]

[1] http://code.google.com/p/openpub/wiki/CatalogSpecDraft
[2] http://jangle.org/
[3] 
http://code.google.com/apis/books/docs/gdata/developers_guide_protocol.html#SearchResultFeed
[4] http://groups.google.com/group/openpub
[5] http://code.google.com/p/openpub/issues/entry
[6] http://bookserver.archive.org/catalog/
[7] http://catalog.oreilly.com/aldiko/main.xml
[8] http://pragprog.com/magazines.opds
[9] http://www.smashwords.com/atom
[10] http://www.archive.org/bookserver