COinS

thumb | right | alt=A window of a referrer is open on a wikipedia article using citation templates with embedded COinS tags | An example of referrers acting on a Wikipedia article using citation templates with embedded COinS tags ContextObjects in Spans (COinS) is a method to embed bibliographic metadata in the HTML code of web pages. This allows bibliographic software to publish machine-readable bibliographic items and client reference management software to retrieve bibliographic metadata. The metadata can also be sent to an OpenURL resolver. This allows, for instance, searching for a copy of a book at a specific library.

== History == In the late 1990s, OpenURL was created at Ghent University as a framework to provide context-sensitive links. The OpenURL link server implementation called SFX was sold to Ex Libris Group which marketed it to libraries, shaping the idea of a "link resolver". The OpenURL framework was later standardized as ANSI/NISO Z39.88 in 2004 (revised 2010). A core part of OpenURL was the concept of "ContextObjects" as metadata to describe referenced resources.