COinS

ContextObjects in Spans ( COinS , English for context objects in span elements ) is a technique for integrating bibliographic metadata into websites .

COinS is based on the OpenURL standard and can in principle be viewed as a microformat , although it does not exactly correspond to the technical specifications of other microformats. Alternative proposals such as the Citation microformat have so far not progressed beyond the planning stage.

use

Special browser - plugins or other programs from the COinS a Website that are normally hidden from view and OpenURL - links for a link resolver create or read the metadata for other purposes. Examples are the browser plugins Zotero (for Firefox ) and Citavi Picker (for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome ).

Examples of internet offers that support COinS are Citebase , WorldCat , Mendeley , ResearchGATE , the German and English language Wikipedia , the German language Wikivoyage and some library catalogs . A plug-in is also offered for the WordPress weblog system.

technology

In the HTML source text of a web page, one - usually empty - <span/>element is set for each link , the classattribute of which has the value by definition "Z3988". URL-encoded pairs of keys and values ​​(in the OpenURL standard key / encoded value , or KEV for short) are written with the bibliographic information in the titleattribute . The keys are also defined in OpenURL or ANSI / NISO Z39.88-2004, for example for the title of a book. rft.btitle

<span class="Z3988"
  title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;
  rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&amp;
  rft.genre=book&amp;
  rft.btitle=Hallo+Welt&amp;
  rft.title=Hallo+Welt&amp;
  rft.aulast=Mustermann&amp;
  rft.aufirst=Max&amp;
  rft.au=Max+Mustermann&amp;
  rft.date=2005&amp;
  rft.pub=Wikipedia-Press&amp;
  rft.place=Musterstadt">
</span>

The line breaks have been inserted for better readability. They may in titleattribute not occur.

See also

• unAPI

Web links

• OpenURL COinS: A Convention to Embed Bibliographic Metadata in HTML : Description, Implementations and Generator
• The OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services . (PDF; 587 kB) ANSI / NISO Z39.88-r2010
• What are COinS? ( Memento of November 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (OCLC)
• Daniel Chudnov: COinS for the Link Trail. In: LibraryJournal.com. July 15, 2006, archived from the original on March 29, 2010 ; accessed on January 21, 2017 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Citation proposal - an alternative microformat
2. ^ Patrick Danowski: Support Zotero with Wordpress. In: Blog. bibliothek2null.de, August 1, 2007, accessed on March 5, 2008 . 
3. ↑ Ann Apps: Z39.88-2004: The OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services. The Key / Encoded-Value (KEV) Format Implementation Guidelines. The University of Manchester, accessed July 17, 2010 .