Ascertaining Z39'50 parameters

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Ascertaining Z39.50 parameters
1st European Library Seminar 10-12 June,
2001Ljubljana

• Ádám Horváth
• National Széchényi Library, Hungary

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Contents

• Virtual catalogues are a reality
• Amicus and LibriVision
• Problems and remedies in creating
  virtual catalogues
• How to ascertain data or how to provide data
  about yourself

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Virtual catalogues are a reality

• The support of Z39.50 is more and more common in
  vendors software
• Vendors often offer gateway services as well

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An example

• Z39.50 server at National Széchényi Library,
  Hungary
• and a Z39.50 client (and gateway) as an OPAC

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Amicus

• Amicus was developed at the National Library of
  Canada

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Amicus
The vendor is now ELIAS / Leuven
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Amicus users
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• NationalLibrary ofCanada

British Library
UniversityLibrary ofOman
PearthMinistry of Health
UniversityLibraryof Leuven

• NationalLibrary ofAustralia

UniversityLibrary ofOviedo
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The OPAC of Amicus LibriVision

• Z39.50 gateway
• Parallel searching
• Search history
• Supports browsing
• Unicode support
• Multilingual interface

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Contents

• Virtual catalogues are a reality
• Amicus and LibriVision
• Problems and remedies in creating
  virtual catalogues
• How to ascertain data or how to provide data
  about yourself

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Problems

• Heterogeneity of target databases in
• structure
• semantics
• syntax
• Different interpretation of Z39.50 parameters
• How to know the Z39.50 parameters of a target???

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Remedies

• Z39.50 profiling activity
• National and international level
• Bath profile
• ONE-2 profile
• Explain-lite
• An extension of the INIT service
• The target (Z39.50 server) supplies information
  about itself
• The origin (Z39.50 client) configures itself
  based on this information

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Explain-lite

• The target provides just essential data
• XML (and not ASN.1)
• flexible
• can be used elsewhere
• Addition to the INIT service

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The content of Explain-lite

• Contact information
• Search attributes
• Browse attributes
• Database names
• Record formats and element set names
• Linkage to other related pages
• Data of last update

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Explain-lite - why XML

• The same XML can also be used
• in client configuration files
• in proxy applications
• Can use XSL to give presentation on the web
• Minimum work in PDU level

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Summarizing the importance of Explain-lite

• Many of us operate Z39.50 targets
• Some of us operate Z39.50 gateways
• We have to find new targets
• Explain-lite enables us to find out the
  parameters of the new targets
• It is also a part of a widely accepted profile

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Contents

• Virtual catalogues are a reality
• Amicus and LibriVision
• Problems and remedies in creating
  virtual catalogues
• How to ascertain data or how to provide data
  about yourself

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The recommendation

• Based on Explain-lite a database should be
  created containing the parameters of the national
  libraries Z39.50 servers

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The database of Z39.50 parameters

• The structure of the database would be based on
  the DTD of Explain-lite
• Data would be entered and updated through a web
  interface by the owner of the Z39.50 server
• The output could be in any format
• HTML, XML, RTF, any other format

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Disadvantages of the current situation

• Currently parameters can be retrieved from
  various locations and formats. E.g.
• http//www.bibsys.no/z/bibz.xml
• http//info.libris.kb.se/infosvensk/databaser/targ
  etdesc.html
• http//www.oszk.hu/z/oszk_e.xml

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Advantages of the proposed solution

• Participants would only have to remember one URL
• to have access to each others parameters
• to make their own parameters available to others
• The parameters of each target would be available
  in the same format

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What do you think about it?
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Thank you for your attention
adam_at_oszk.hu