COinS

COinS ( Context Objects in Spans for English, German context objects in clamping elements) is a technique for the integration of bibliographic metadata in Web pages.

COinS is based on the OpenURL standard and can in principle be regarded as a micro format, although it does not exactly match the technical specifications of other microformats. The alternative suggested by the citation microformat have not yet got beyond the planning stage.

Use

Browser specific plugins or other programs can generate from the usually not directly visible COinS a website OpenURL links on a link resolver or read the metadata for other purposes. Examples include the browser plugins Zotero ( for Firefox) and Citavi Picker ( for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome).

Technology

Mostly empty - - - element set whose class attribute by definition the value " Z3988 " Over the HTML source code of a Web page is a per -reference. In the title attribute URL-encoded pairs of keys and values ​​( in the OpenURL standard key / value encoded in short KEV called ) written with the bibliographic information. The keys are also defined in the OpenURL and ANSI / NISO Z39.88 - 2004, for example rft.btitle for the title of a book.