Wikipedia:COinS

In this example, Zotero is displaying the references it can retrieve. The OpenURL referrer is responsible for the Find in a library links.

ContextObjects in Spans (COinS) is a unmaintained method of embedding latent OpenURL ContextObjects in web pages. This allows client software to retrieve bibliographic metadata and to use an OpenURL resolver to find a mediated link. A principal advantage of using COinS, rather than giving a static OpenURL, is that the client can determine which resolver to use. This allows, for instance, searching for a copy of a book in one's own library.

COinS have been added to various parts of Wikipedia. They are basically just a chunk of bibliographic information stored in a way that machines can read. This has two applications:

  • The information can be converted into a full OpenURL and resolved by a local OpenURL resolver.
  • The information can be stored by bibliographic tools like Zotero.[1] The tool can download the bibliographic information from an article into a personal library for future research and retrieval.
    • Zotero also has Wikipedia export,[2] which allows references to be dragged into a Wikipedia edit box, where they will appear formatted as Wikipedia citation templates.

So far, COinS have been added to:

  1. ^ "Zotero and Wikipedia / Wikidata". Zotero.
  2. ^ "Zotero & Wikipedia: Perfect Together". Zotero.