A window of a referrer is open on a wikipedia article using citation templates with embedded COinS tags
An example of referrers acting on a Wikipedia article using citation templates with embedded COinS tags

ContextObjects in Spans (COinS) is a method to embed bibliographic metadata in the HTML code of web pages. This allows bibliographic software to publish machine-readable bibliographic items and client reference management software to retrieve bibliographic metadata. The metadata can also be sent to an OpenURL resolver. This allows, for instance, searching for a copy of a book at a specific library.

History

In the late 1990s, OpenURL was created at Ghent University as a framework to provide context-sensitive links. The OpenURL link server implementation called SFX was sold to Ex Libris Group which marketed it to libraries, shaping the idea of a "link resolver". The OpenURL framework was later standardized as ANSI/NISO Z39.88 in 2004 (revised 2010). A core part of OpenURL was the concept of "ContextObjects" as metadata to describe referenced resources.

In late 2004, Richard Cameron, the creator of CiteULike, drew attention to the need for a standard way of embedding metadata in HTML pages. In January 2005, Daniel Chudnov suggested the use of OpenURL. Embedding OpenURL ContextObjects in HTML had been proposed before by Herbert Van de Sompel and Oren Beit-Arie and a working paper by Chudnov and Jeremy Frumkin. Discussion of the latter on the GPS-PCS mailing list resulted in a draft specification for embedding OpenURLs in HTML, which later became COinS. A ContextObject is embedded in an HTML span element.

The adoption of COinS was pushed by various publications and implementations. The specification was OCOinS.info, which includes specific guides to implement COinS for journal articles and books. Despite the specification webpage no longer being live, the standard is still usable, though fairly rare.

Data model

From OpenURL 1.0, COinS borrows one of its serialization formats ("KEV") and some ContextObject metadata formats included in OpenURL implementation guidelines. The ContextObject implementation guidelines of COinS include four publication types (article with several subtypes, book, patent, and generic) and a couple of simple fields. However, the guidelines are not a required part of COinS, so the standard does not provide a strict metadata model like Dublin Core or the Bibliographic Ontology.

Use

The use of COinS is still fairly rare.

The following websites make use of COinS:

Server-side applications

Some server-side applications embed COinS, including refbase.

Client tools

Client tools which can make use of COinS include:

See also

Further reading

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  • Apps, Ann; MacIntyre, Ross (May 2006). . D-Lib Magazine. Vol. 12, no. 5. hdl:. ISSN .
  • Apps, Ann; MacIntyre, Ross (2006-10-03). . Proceedings of the International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. doi:.
  • Apps, Ann; MacIntyre, Ross (2008). . ELPUB 2008 International Conference on Electronic Publishing, Toronto (Canada), 25-27 June 2008. S2CID .
  • Ashmore, Beth; Grogg, Jill E. (2006). "Google and OCLC open libraries on the Open Web". Searcher. 14 (10). Medford, New Jersey: Learned information: 44–53. ISSN . Gale .
  • Bailey, Annette; Back, Godmar (2008-02-29). "Retrieving known items with LibX". The Serials Librarian. 53 (4): 125–140. doi:. ISSN .
  • Boston, George; Gedeon, Randle J. (2008). (PDF). In Yu, Holly; Breivold, Scott (eds.). (PDF). Hershey, Pennsylvania: Information Science Reference, IGI Global. pp. 235–249. doi:. ISBN 978-1-59904-891-8.
  • Chang, Sheau-Hwang (2007). . Chinese Librarianship. 23 (2).
  • Chudnov, Daniel; England, Deberah (2008-05-19). "A new approach to library service discovery and resource delivery". The Serials Librarian. 54 (1–2): 63–69. doi:. ISSN .
  • Chudnov, Daniel (2005-10-24). . Yale School of Medicine. Archived from on 2007-02-08.
  • Chudnov, Daniel (Summer 2006). "COinS for the Link Trail". NetConnect. New York City: Reed Business Information: 8–10. ISSN . OCLC .
  • Chudnov, Daniel; Binkley, Peter; Frumkin, Jeremy; Giarlo, Michael; Rylander, Mike; Singer, Ross; Summers, Ed (2006-07-30). . Ariadne (48). doi:. hdl:.
  • Dempsey, Kathy (April 2007). . Computers in Libraries. 27 (4). Medford, New Jersey: Information Today, Inc.: 11–23. ISSN . ERIC .
  • Dempsey, Lorcan (2006). . D-Lib Magazine. 12 (4). doi:. ISSN .
  • Donohue, Tim (2009-10-15). . DSpace User Group Meeting 2009. hdl:.
  • Eaton, J. (2005). "COinS promises to extend OpenURL standard to meet the challenges posed by the ever widening range of bibliographic sources". Managing Information. 12 (8). London: ASLIB: The Association for Information Management: 39. ISSN . OCLC .
  • Jill E., Grogg (January 2006). . Library Technology Reports. 42 (1). doi:. ISSN .
  • Lagace, Nettie; Chisman, Janet K. (2007-06-26). "How did we ever manage without the OpenURL?". The Serials Librarian. 52 (1–2): 211–222. doi:. ISSN .
  • MacIntyre, Ross (2006). . SRU Implementors Group, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, March 3, 2006. Archived from on 2006-03-13.
  • Min, Gao; Yuling, Jin; Weiling, Liu (2008). "The development and innovative uses of OpenURL research". Data Analysis and Knowledge Discovery (in Chinese). 24 (2): 87–90. doi:.
  • "New & Noteworthy". Library Hi Tech News. 22 (8). 2005-09-01. doi:. ISSN .
  • O'Riordan, Adrian (2014-06-22). "Open search environments: The free alternative to commercial search services". Information Technology and Libraries. 33 (2): 45–60. doi:. ISSN .
  • Pace, Andrew K. (September 2005). "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Technically speaking. American Libraries. 36 (8): 78–79. JSTOR .
  • Page, Roderic D. M. (2010-09-21). . Nature Precedings. Springer Science and Business Media. doi:. ISSN .
  • Page, Roderic D. M. (2011). . BMC Bioinformatics. 12 (1): 187. doi:. ISSN . PMC . PMID .
  • Palmer, James D. (2007-03-11). "Exploiting bibliographic web services with CiTeX". Proceedings of the 2007 ACM symposium on Applied computing. ACM. pp. 1673–1676. doi:. ISBN 978-1-59593-480-2.
  • Ronallo, Jason (2012-02-03). . The Code4Lib Journal (16) 6400. ISSN .
  • Tanner, Rene; Flitner, Debbie (2021-06-25). (PDF). Arizona State University. Archived from (PDF) on 2024-03-29.
  • Trainor, Cindi; Price, Jason S. (October 2010). . Library Technology Reports: Expert Guides to Library Systems and Services. 46 (7). ALA TechSource. , pp. 27-33. doi:. ISBN 978-0-8389-5813-1. ISSN .

External links