Communications Protocol: Distributed Generic Information Retrieval (DiGIR)

• Distributed Generic Information Retrieval (DiGIR) is a client/server protocol for retrieving information from distributed resources. It uses HTTP as the transport mechanism and XML for encoding messages sent between client and server. It is an open source project hosted on Source Forge.
• DiGIR was originally conceived to be the replacement for the Z39.50 protocol and is intended to work with any type of information, not just Natural History collections.  It establishes an open standard and lays the groundwork for a generic protocol, capable supporting many communities, without regard to discipline or domain (data semantics).
• DiGIR is designed to offer the same capabilities as the Z39.50 communications protocol except using simpler technologies and a more formal specification for description of information resources. The result is a distributed information retrieval solution that provides an easy entry for participation in distributed information networks.

Schema: Darwin Core Metadata Schema (v.2)

• The Darwin Core metadata profile provides a list of suggested access points and recommendations for their usage for searching natural history specimen and observation databases. It provides suggestions for stringing queries such that they are protocol independent. It also provides guidance as to the content, structure and format of records retrieved from an information server supporting the Darwin Core.
• Extended information on the purpose, goals, and limitation of the Darwin Core schema is available. Please visit the Taxonomic Data Working Group website on this topic. 

Other Standards & Resources:

Registry Standards: UDDI

• The Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) protocol is one of the major building blocks required for successful Web services. UDDI creates a standard interoperable platform that enables companies and applications to quickly, easily, and dynamically find and use Web services over the Internet. UDDI also allows operational registries to be maintained for different purposes in different contexts.
• Data Providers are asked to register the location of their DiGIR service in the global UDDI registry. The NBII UDDI Registy is located at: http://nbii-registry.ornl.gov/

Access to Biological Collection Data (ABCD) Schema

• The Committee on Science and Data Technology/Taxonomic Data Working Group (CODATA/TDWG) task group on ABCD, has developed a schema as a proposed standard for distributed data retrieval from collection data bases. It is designed to be used as a result schema, i.e. for data returned from collection databases as the result of a request.
• The BioCASE provider software displays and searches collections formatted using ABCD.