As Gil has indicated, PURLs are a critical element in our ability to provide cataloging and locating services and in managing the products in the FDLP Electronic Collection. This initiative has been an extensive multi-phase project that has involved the efforts of people within OCLC, GPO's Production Department, and the Library Programs Service.
PURLs provide a means for supporting efforts to provide continued access to electronic resources.
As links change, new links will be substituted for old ones within our PURLs resolver and users who click on a PURL will be redirected to the current link. This application is of value to such LPS applications as BET and our Web Catalog and may be useful for other applications in the years ahead. I wish to thank Mike Clark for his persistent efforts during the most recent phase of this project. Mike has set up, tested, and initiated the first-time use of OCLC's most recent PURLs release for LPS applications. I also wish to thank OCLC for responding to our request for substantive changes to its PURLs resolver software.