Coins

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 Wiki සිංහල. 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. For instance, with LibX, OpenURL referrer, or a similar extension or bookmarklet installed in Firefox, a link will appear after many of the books and journal articles in a Wikipedia article's References section. If the extension is configured correctly, the user can click a link after a book to check if his organization's library has a copy. If the organization has the appropriate access, clicking the link after a journal article may bring up a copy of the article.
• The information can be stored by bibliographic tools like Zotero. The tool can download the bibliographic information from an article into a personal library for future research and retrieval.
  • Zotero also has Wikipedia export, 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:

• Wiki: Book sources – just contains the ISBN
• Many citation templates and infoboxes – see: Category:Templates generating COinS
• MediaWiki:Citethispage-content – generated when you click Cite this article; contains information for citing Wiki itself in other documents

For use on templates generating COinS:

{{UF-COinS}}

It adds pages to the above category.

COinS could, and should, be added to these templates:

• {{Infobox comics character}}
• {{Infobox graphic novel}}

The COinS keys used in most Citation Style 1 templates are listed at Module talk:Citation/CS1/COinS.

For example:

{{cite book |last=Bloggs |first=Fred |editor-first=John |editor-last=Doe |title=Big Compilation Book with Many Chapters and Distinct Chapter Authors |publisher=Book Publishers |date=January 1, 2001 |pages=100–110 |chapter=Chapter 2: The History of the Bloggs Family |isbn=978-1-234-56789-7}} 

Which renders the following HTML:

Picking out the COinS keys:

Pollution

Incorrect data in fields can pollute the metadata. For example, adding all of the authors into the |authors= field:

{{cite book |authors=Smith, John; Johnson, Joe; Green, Ethan |title=Big Compilation Book with Many Chapters and Distinct Chapter Authors |publisher=Book Publishers |date=January 1, 2001 |pages=100–110 |chapter=Chapter 2: The History of the Bloggs Family |isbn=978-1-234-56789-7}} 

• The planned citation microformat