LAKH

LAKH Frequently Asked Questions

What is a harvester?
Why a Latin American harvester?
How can you use the harvester?
Who can use the harvester?
Who supports the harvester?
Who can become a partner?
How can you learn more about this project?

What is a harvester?

Harvesting refers to the activity of searching for and collecting metadata from Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Institutional Repositories (IR) whose content is indexed and posted for open use from a World Wide Web server. An OAI harvester is software that performs the job of regularly "visiting" open access databases that has informed the harvester of their existence. The harvested metadata is accrued in a database that can then be searched. The harvester’s creator decides what services to provide on top of this data, for example, searching and cross linking. The harvester can be set to harvest only metadata in a specific subject, from a select group of data providers, or from all available open access databases. In this project the University of New Mexico (UNM) has created a harvester for the data providers involved in the current stage of the Harvester for Creating Knowledge Streams in the Americas Project. The harvested metadata is archived and preserved. The Institutional Repositories (IR’s) commit to upgrade accessibility as technology changes. The OAI/PHM metadata is an international standard protocol of classification fields for any item that is shared in an OAI archive such as author, content description, abstract, type of file, and other “tags” that classify content in ways that can be stored and retrieved from a data base server such as DSpace™.

Why a Latin American harvester?

At the present time, there is no harvester for Latin America content Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Institutional Repositories (IR). The Harvester for Creating Knowledge Streams in the Americas Project has been created for training and/or supporting our Latin American institutional partners to digitize and post their collections to their own OAI institutional repositories (IR).
The Latin American Knowledge Harvester (LAKH) is harvesting Latin American repositories initially from the content identified in the project. We intend to establish a pre-print institutional repository for scholarly works on Latin America in the social sciences, humanities and the sciences. While OAI pre-print repositories have been used for a number of years in the sciences to great effect, stimulating research collaboration as well as open streamed discussions and comments on works in progress, the application of this technology to the social sciences and humanities is new. This project offers an E-print service as a new, less costly, method of research dissemination.

How can you use the harvester?

The Latin American Knowledge Harvester (LAKH) software gathers indexed materials and abstracts and directs users to full-text repositories of previously unavailable content from collaborating institutions in Latin America in three major languages: English, Spanish and Portuguese. Content complies with the Dublin Core Standard for metadata used for Open Archives Initiative (OAI) repositories and harvesting.

The LAKH features an adaptive approach to cataloguing items and displaying content. Content producers are encouraged to describe their posted items in their own words; then, the library information specialist adds to the author’s keywords standard subject terms, in conformity with Library Subject analysis. This approach captures the specialized and evolving language of practitioners of diverse disciplines, allowing a scholar to search for an item using familiar terms that are used in his/her field, and not be constrained by library cataloging terms.
Once the harvester is developed, the project intends to experiment with a pre-print OAI service for its participants. The addition of rapid dissemination of new information, discussions, notes, and comments on pre-prints will form a rich substrate for building collaborative communities.

Who can use the harvester?

Any individual and organization, such as universities, research centers, libraries, and school teachers, with access to the internet and an installed browser.

Who supports the harvester?

Who can become a partner?

Any institution in Latin America or doing Latin America-related research, that owns a digitized collection or an institutional repository, desires to join the open archive community, share its knowledge, and gain more visibility.