SRW/U with OAI: Expected and Unexpected Synergies

SRW/U (the Search/Retrieve Webservice) and OAI (Open Archives Initiative) are both modern information retrieval protocols developed by distinct groups from different backgrounds at around the same time. This article sets out to briefly contrast the two protocols' aims and approaches, and then to look at some novel ways in which they have been or may be usefully co-implemented. While using SRW as a search service to an OAI repository or aggregated data set is an obvious synergy, there are also many other useful architectures that can be constructed without bending the protocols' semantics.