Open Archives Initiative -Protocol for Metadata Harvesting 

If you  are interested in metadata sharing, publishing and archiving, then OAI-PMH is for you.  It is a standard way for other institutions to find, gather and share the materials in your ResCarta Web site.

The ResCarta Collection Manager writes a METS XML file with the metadata concerning your collection.  This file can be easily read to create OAI Dublin Core (oai-dc ) data files, which can be hosted by an OAI provider software.  ResCarta Web works well with JOAI software from DLESE.

 There is a great site for learning more about OAI, you can find it at the following url...

http://www.oaforum.org/tutorial/