Skip to content

Machine-to-Machine Interfaces

Types of interface available at EDINA

Interfaces supported by EDINA Bibliographic Services

Interfaces supported by EDINA Multimedia Services

Types of interface available at EDINA

EDINA provides several machine-to-machine interfaces. These include:

Z39.50 (ISO23950)
A standard that defines a client/server based service and protocol for Information Retrieval. Z39.50 is widely implemented in systems such as library catalogues and bibliographic databases, and is commonly used for federated searching.
Z39.50 is supported by CAB Abstracts, Land Life Leisure, SALSER, SUNCAT and NewsFilm Online. Additionally, Z39.50 interfaces of the discontinued services Film & Sound Online and Education Image Gallery will be available until 31 July 2012.
SRU
A standard XML-focused search protocol for Internet search queries. SRU is based on Z39.50 semantics, but is more modern, being based on HTTP requests and responses, using the CQL query language and (usually) returning search results as XML records.
SRU is supported by JISC MediaHub.
OAI-PMH
The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is a low-barrier mechanism for metadata harvesting. Whereas Z39.50 and SRU are designed to make a specific search, and retrieve matching records in relatively small numbers, OAI-PMH is designed to allow the extraction ("harvesting") of all of the records from a database. OAI-PMH provides six types of request ("verbs"), made by HTTP, that can be used to investigate the metadata available from an interface. Records are retrieved as XML.
OAI-PMH is supported by JISC MediaHub.

Bibliographic Services

Multimedia Services

  • JISC MediaHub (SRU and OAI-PMH)
  • NewsFilm Online (Z39.50)
  • Education Image Gallery (Z39.50)
    This service was superseded by JISC MediaHub on 1 August 2011. To help institutions with the the transition, the Education Image Gallery Z.39.50 target will be maintained until 31 July 2012
  • Film & Sound Online (Z39.50)
    This service was superseded by JISC MediaHub on 1 August 2011. To help institutions with the the transition, the Film and Sound Online Z.39.50 target will be maintained until 31 July 2012