Umlaut is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

front-end for a link resolver for libraries, which deals with advertising services for specific known citations. It runs as

Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails (simplified as Rails) is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web ...

application via an engine gem. Umlaut accepts requests in

OpenURL An OpenURL is similar to a web address, but instead of referring to a physical website, it refers to an article, book, patent, or other resource within a website. OpenURLs are similar to permalinks because they are permanently connected to a r ...

format, but has no knowledge base of its own, and is intended to be used as a front-end for an existing knowledge base. Currently only

SFX SFX may refer to: Entertainment * Special effects (usually visual), illusions used in film, television, and entertainment * Sound effects, sounds that are artificially created or enhanced * ''SFX'' (magazine), a British magazine covering the top ...

is supported (using the SFX API), but other plugins can be written.

How it works

Umlaut accepts an OpenURL query and the user's

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

, and determines if there are available link resolvers for that address. Umlaut then tries to enrich the item metadata by querying additional sources of information depending on what the original request includes.

Examples

NYU's GetIt service

References

{{Reflist

External links

Project Home (GitHub)

(Re-)Introducing the Umlaut
Jonathan Rochkind, January 14, 2008 Free software Library and information science software