bibp:USIN

Reference Linking Now!

Linking 1-2-3: Making BibP Links in Three Easy Steps

BibP linking to published works is as easy as 1-2-3.

Determine the USIN for the referenced work.
Make the bibp:USIN hyperlink.
Add the client side resolver to enable BibP service.

1. Determining USINs

USINs are formed as follows.

Add "ISBN/" in front of an ISBN for a book citation.
Add "ISSN/" in front of an ISSN for a journal citation.
Follow the more detailed instructions for articles, technical reports, theses and so on as described in the documents below.
- Robert D. Cameron and Serban G. Tatu. "Bibliographic Protocol Level 1: Link Resolution and Metapage Retrieval." Internet Draft draft-cameron-tatu-bibp-02.txt also available in HTML. Note: Internet Drafts are considered unpublished works in progress; therefore there is no BibP link for this document.
- Robert D. Cameron. "Towards Universal Serial Item Names," Journal of Digital Information, Volume 1, Number 3, October 1998. bibp:ISSN/1368-7506:1(3)$Cameron

2. Making bibp:USIN Hyperlinks

Technically, "bibp" is a URI scheme just like "http", "ftp", "mailto", and so on. So a bibp link in HTML has the familiar structure.

<a href="bibp:USIN">citation</a>

Just replace USIN with the USIN as determined above and citation with the text that you want to use for your hypertext anchor.

3. Enabling BibP Service

Enabling BibP service is the final step. Simply copy-and-paste the following client-side resolver into the head element (i.e., somewhere between the "<head>" and "</head>" tags) of your HTML document.

<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- // bibres.js  version 1.1
     // (c) Robert D. Cameron and Serban Tatu, November 2000. 
     // GNU General Public License, Version 2 applies.
var BibP_BaseURL;
var BibP_nocitehost = typeof(BibP_citehost) == "undefined";
function BibP_SetBaseURL (server) {
  BibP_BaseURL = server + "bibp1.0/resolve?" +
  (BibP_nocitehost ? "usin=" : "citehost="+ BibP_citehost+ "&usin=")}
BibP_SetBaseURL(BibP_nocitehost ? "http://usin.org/" :BibP_citehost);
function BibP_onMouseOver () {
  window.status = "bibp:" + this.href.substring(BibP_BaseURL.length); 
  return true}
function BibP_onMouseOut () {window.status = "";  return true}
function BibP_ProcessLink(L, srchKey) {
  var spot = L.href.indexOf(srchKey);
  if (spot != -1) {
    L.href = BibP_BaseURL + L.href.substring(spot + srchKey.length);
    L.onmouseover = BibP_onMouseOver;
    L.onmouseout = BibP_onMouseOut}}
var BibP_Icon = new Image ();      // To test for local bibhost icon.
function BibP_onIcon () {
  if (BibP_Icon.height!=0) {
    var oldBase = BibP_BaseURL;
    BibP_SetBaseURL("http://bibhost/");
    for (var i = 0; i < document.links.length; i++) 
      BibP_ProcessLink(document.links[i], oldBase)}}
function BibP_onLoad () {
  for (var i = 0; i < document.links.length; i++)
    BibP_ProcessLink(document.links[i], "bibp:")
  BibP_Icon.onload = BibP_onIcon;  // Now test for bibhost.
  BibP_Icon.src = "http://bibhost/bibp1.0/bibpicon.jpg"}
if (typeof(navigator.bibpSupport) == "undefined") {
  window.onload = BibP_onLoad}
// -->
</script>

That's it! You now have bibp links that work world-wide on the vast majority of popular web clients.