OAI-PMH

The Annals of Proteomics and Bioinformatics (APB) supports the Open Archives Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), an international standard that allows metadata from scholarly publications to be collected and integrated across repositories and indexing services. This protocol enhances interoperability and ensures the visibility of APB articles across global databases and library systems.

OAI-PMH allows other repositories and metadata harvesters to access bibliographic information from APB automatically, ensuring that every published article is discoverable and archived in open systems.

1. Overview of OAI-PMH

The OAI-PMH is a standard developed by the Open Archives Initiative for sharing and harvesting metadata records between digital repositories. By implementing this protocol, APB facilitates the free exchange of bibliographic information, enabling libraries, aggregators, and indexing databases to collect article metadata seamlessly.

The protocol supports six core requests (verbs) that allow harvesters to interact with the APB repository programmatically:

  • Identify – Retrieves basic information about the repository.
  • ListSets – Lists available sets (collections or journal sections).
  • ListMetadataFormats – Returns metadata formats supported (e.g., Dublin Core, MARCXML).
  • ListIdentifiers – Provides record identifiers for all available metadata entries.
  • ListRecords – Retrieves complete metadata records.
  • GetRecord – Retrieves metadata for a specific item using its identifier.

2. Base URL and Access Endpoint

The official base URL for APB’s OAI-PMH implementation is:

OAI-PMH Base URL:
https://www.proteobiojournal.com/index.php/apb/oai

This endpoint is compatible with OJS/PKP’s native OAI module and can be queried by any compliant harvester to retrieve metadata in multiple formats, including Dublin Core (oai_dc) and MODS XML.

3. Supported Metadata Formats

APB’s repository supports widely recognized metadata formats for interoperability and cross-platform data exchange:

Format Description
Dublin Core (oai_dc) Standard descriptive metadata format required by OAI-PMH for resource discovery.
MARCXML Machine-Readable Cataloging format compatible with library systems.
MODS Metadata Object Description Schema for richer bibliographic representation.
CrossRef XML Used for DOI registration and citation linking.
DataCite XML Applied to datasets and supplementary materials.

4. Interoperability and Harvesting

Through OAI-PMH, APB collaborates with global repositories and indexing databases to make metadata discoverable across multiple platforms, including:

  • Google Scholar
  • CrossRef
  • OpenAIRE
  • BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)
  • ROAD and DOAJ directories
  • Institutional and national research repositories

Metadata harvesting via OAI-PMH ensures that APB’s content remains accessible, machine-readable, and permanently archived in the global scholarly ecosystem.

5. Example Queries

Users and developers can test metadata retrieval through direct URL requests. Example queries include:

  • Identify Repository:
    https://www.proteobiojournal.com/index.php/apb/oai?verb=Identify
  • List Metadata Formats:
    https://www.proteobiojournal.com/index.php/apb/oai?verb=ListMetadataFormats
  • List Records (Dublin Core):
    https://www.proteobiojournal.com/index.php/apb/oai?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc

These endpoints can be integrated into institutional library catalogs or automated data-harvesting tools to synchronize article metadata.

6. Benefits of OAI-PMH Integration

  • Enhances discoverability of APB content in library databases and indexing services.
  • Facilitates metadata harvesting for digital preservation systems.
  • Ensures compliance with open-science mandates and repository standards.
  • Improves citation linkage through structured metadata interoperability.
  • Strengthens research transparency by enabling machine-readable article data.

7. Repository Compliance

APB’s repository implementation aligns with OAI-PMH version 2.0 and conforms to the interoperability standards recommended by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) and COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories). It supports incremental harvesting, resumption tokens, and community-defined sets for journal sections and issue categorization.

8. Technical Support

Repository administrators and librarians who wish to connect their systems to APB’s OAI-PMH endpoint can contact the technical team for implementation guidance. Sample metadata schemas and XML structures are available upon request for institutional integration.

For technical assistance, email [email protected].

9. Data Preservation and Sustainability

OAI-PMH complements APB’s digital preservation strategies through Portico, LOCKSS, and PKP PN. By maintaining machine-harvestable metadata, the journal ensures that its scholarly output remains citable and accessible indefinitely, even if technological platforms evolve.

10. Compliance with Open-Science Standards

APB’s OAI-PMH system supports the FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and is registered with global repository networks to support open access and data-sharing mandates.

11. Citation of Metadata

Users reusing APB metadata in repositories, bibliographies, or discovery tools should cite the original source and include the journal’s base OAI-PMH URL as the reference endpoint:

“Metadata harvested from Annals of Proteomics and Bioinformatics (APB) via OAI-PMH endpoint: https://www.proteobiojournal.com/index.php/apb/oai.”

12. Contact Information

For inquiries regarding metadata harvesting, repository integration, or technical collaboration, please contact:

© 2025 Annals of Proteomics and Bioinformatics (APB) · Heighten Sciences Publication Incorporation

Source Reference: Modeled on OAI-PMH v2.0 specifications (Open Archives Initiative), PKP guidelines, and COAR repository standards.