Folks,

Rod Page has a slick scientific reference parser at http://bioguid.info/references and has also made an XML- & JSON- (with optional callback) generating function with full references as input parameter. I won't describe the guts of the parser & how it works, but will instead leave that heavy lifting to Rod. You may read more about it here: http://tinyurl.com/ynw2q2.

I made a simple gadget for web page developers/authors to take advantage of this superb service. All you have to do is insert one line in the page header to insert a JavaScript file, download a few small icons and make them available to the JavaScript (one minor edit in the script), and adjust the markup associated with your references as follows:

<p><span class="article">This is one full reference</span></p>

<p><span class="article">This is another full reference</span></p>

.and the functions in the JavaScript insert search icons for each reference. Upon receiving a visitor's click, a reference is shuttled off to Rod's parser and, after a very brief moment, the search icon changes to a clickable icon depending on what was found in the DOI, handle, PDF world. You can read more, get the script & icons, & try it out on a Blogger post here: http://tinyurl.com/ytqxo6.

What's the point to all this? Well, old reprints are being scanned (& hopefully being assigned DOIs) all over the place. As a web page author, it's a pain the neck to stay on top of this game and yet there a strong desire to make references on a page clickable such that visitors can immediately download the article(s). There are other solutions to this, but my goal was to make a tool that is very simple to implement & intuitively obvious for visitors.

Caveats:

1) Only scientific articles in journals will return successful responses, but of course nothing in life is guaranteed

2) There are a ton of ways a full reference to an article can be written. Successful response from Rod's service depends on the structure of these references between the <span> elements. Before including this JavaScript and adjusting the markup on your web pages, you'd best try a few at http://bioguid.info/references.

3) Rod tweaks and updates services at http://bioguid.info on a regular basis so consider all this bleeding edge

Have fun!

David P. Shorthouse

------------------------------------------------------

Department of Biological Sciences

CW-403, Biological Sciences Centre

University of Alberta

Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9

mailto:dps1@ualberta.ca

http://canadianarachnology.webhop.net

http://arachnidforum.webhop.net

http://www.spiderwebwatch.org http://www.spiderwebwatch.org/ ------------------------------------------------------