The latest edition of the Collection Description Focus Newsletter has an update on the JISC IE Service Registry.
The IESR is currently accessible on the web at https://iesr.ac.uk/registry/ and through Z39.50 (details at https://iesr.ac.uk/registry/docs/iesrZ3950.html). An OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) repository of IESR records is currently under development. This will provide the various IESR entity descriptions in simple Dublin Core, as well as full IESR XML records. Plans for the next phase of the Service Registry include a UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) view of the data and a Web Services interface. [Collection Description Focus News Bulletins]
For example, the entry for Inspec at Edina has a description of the database, a description of the two services which make it available (web access and Z39.50), and a description of the responsible agent, Edina.
The mention of UDDI is interesting in light of a recent post on Loosely Coupled, which talks about UDDI in the context of a general discussion of how standards are developed:
UDDI 1.0 was a classic case of a standard that tried to be innovative. No wonder no one used it. It missed out on a vital ingredient, because the geeks who designed it wanted the machines to do everything without having to involve human beings at all. So they missed out the element of trust. [Trust, contracts and UDDI – Loosely Coupled weblog, Nov 12th 2004 10:12am]
