Wikipedia:COinS

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. 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:


 * 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 Wikipedia itself in other documents

Template
For use on templates generating COinS:

UF-COinS

It adds pages to the above category.

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


 * Infobox comics character
 * Infobox graphic novel

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

For example:

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 deprecated authors parameter:

This would pollute the metadata, therefore the citation template suppresses the generation of metadata for authors, thereby omitting vital citation data from being submitted.