1. ResourceSync
Nettie Lagace
ALA Midwinter NISO Update – January 26, 2014

2. General Description
Consideration:
•
•
Source (server) A has resources that change over time: they get created,
modified, deleted
Destination (servers) X Y and Z leverage (some) resources of Source A
Problem:
•
Destinations want to keep in step with the resource changes at Source A:
resource synchronization
Goal:
•
Design an approach for resource synchronization aligned with the Web
Architecture that has a fair chance of adoption by different communities. The
approach must scale better than recurrent HTTP HEAD/GET on resources

3. General Description
• Range of easy to implement capabilities
• Modular: provides flexibility and enables a broad range of use cases
• Supported by server to enable remote systems to remain more
tightly in step with its evolving resources.
• Describes how a server can advertise the capabilities it supports.
– Remote systems can inspect this information to determine how best
to remain aligned with the evolving data.
• Each capability provides a different synchronization functionality:
– list of the server's resources
– recently changed resources: created, updated, deleted
– Implemented on document formats introduced by Sitemap protocol

4. ResourceSync Partnership
• NISO
• Open Archives Initiative
• JISC
• Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
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5. Working Group
Core
• Herbert Van de Sompel, LANL
• Martin Klein, LANL
• Robert Sanderson, LANL
• Simeon Warner, Cornell University
• Bernhard Haslhofer, University of
Vienna
• Michael L. Nelson, Old Dominion
University
• Carl Lagoze, University of Michigan
• Graham Klyne, University of
Oxford
• Peter Murray, Lyrasis
Technical
• Shlomo Sanders, Ex Libris
• Richard Jones, Paul Walk, Stuart
Lewis, JISC
• Kevin Ford, Library of Congress
• Jeff Young, OCLC
• David Rosenthal, LOCKSS
• Christian Sadilek, RedHat

6. Recent steps
• August 2013 - Release of ResourceSync framework
Core specification, Version 0.9.1; public draft of
ResourceSync Archives specification released
• September 2013 - Core specification on its way to
become an ANSI standard
• November 2013 - Internal draft of ResourceSync
Notification specification
• January 2014 - Public draft of ResourceSync
Notification specification
• Q1 2014 - Core specification becomes ANSI/NISO
standard
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7. Thank you! Questions?