Open Archives Initiative

The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) was an informal organization, in the circle around the colleagues Herbert Van de Sompel, Carl Lagoze, Michael L. Nelson and Simeon Warner,[1] to develop and apply technical interoperability standards for archives to share catalogue information (metadata).

OAI coordinated in particular three specification activities: OAI-PMH,[7] OAI-ORE[8] and ResourceSync.

[9][10][11] All along the group worked towards building a "low-barrier interoperability framework" for archives (institutional repositories) containing digital content (digital libraries) to allow people (service providers) harvest metadata (from data providers).

[14][15][16][17] OAI has been involved in developing a technological framework and interoperability standards for enhancing access to eprint archives, which make scholarly communications like academic journals available, associated with the open access publishing movement.

The relevant technology and standards are applicable beyond scholarly publishing.