Exploring OAI-PMH: Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metedata Harvesting

There are factually hundreds of billions of highly valuable documents hidden in searchable databases that cannot be retrieved by con-ventional search engines. Searching on the Internet today can be compared to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean. There is a wealth of information that is deep, and therefore missed. Institutional repositories and digital libraries are adopting the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) to expose their belongings of white papers. The Open Archives Initiative has its roots in an effort to en-hance access to e-print archives as a means of increasing the availability of scholarly communication. Continued support of this work remains a cornerstone of the Open Archives program. The fundamental technological framework and standards that are developing to support this work are, however, independent of the both the type of content offered and the economic mechanisms surrounding that content, and promise to have much broader relevance in opening up access to a range of digital materials