Z3950 and Z Guide - Resources and Review

A discussion project conducted in 1997 which arose out of the virtual Canadian union catalogue project. Deals with technical, vendor, bibliographic data, and administrative issues.
 
Draft profile identifying a subset of specifications from the Z39.50 Information Retrieval Protocol for use in Z39.50 client and server software. An explanation is given as to how this will improve search and retrieval among library catalogues, union catalogues, and other electronic resource discovery services worldwide, together with information about scope, functional requirements, and conformance issues.
 
Full text (PDF) of a dissertation which explored and described factors involved in the development of information technology standards, through a case study of Z39.50. The study demonstrates that complex standards development efforts can be investigated sytematically.
 
Aims to establish a pilot virtual clump to provide single search access to the library catalogues of six members of the M25 Consortium of Higher Education Libraries. The project will consist of a seamless search tool to the library OPACs of the six pilot partners and will provide monograph and serial information using the Z39.50 protocol.
 
Directory service which provides information about Z39.50 targets in the UK in order to support the configuration of Z39.50 clients and facilitate connection to UK services. It allows UK organisations with Z39.50 targets to register these services, describe connection parameters and document supported search attributes.
 
A project aimed at dealing with the problems of large and complex retrieval sets, possible from multiple databases, obtained via the Z39.50 protocol. The trial service allows cross
searching of at least 12 university library catalogues, using Z39.50 from within a Web browser.
 
The main focus of standardisation in the library arena has moved from that of supporting efficiency to allowing library users to access external resources and facilitating remote access to library resources. The potential of full interoperability in the field is examined along with its likely impact. Some of the gaps in current standards are examined, with a focus on information retrieval.
 
Aims to support large scale resource discovery across the Yorkshire and Humberside region by using the Z39.50 protocol to create a distributed union catalogue.
 
Document outlining the Z39.50 attribute architecture, including revisions based on discussions at ZIG meetings (Z39.50 Implementors Group) and over the ZIG mailing list, from 1996 onwards. The major conclusion of the group was that a new architecture for attribute sets should be developed; they went on to recommend an architecture based on classes of attribute sets, with expanded attribute types.
 
Technical briefing explaining the substance and significance of Z39.50, the international standard for communication between library and information related computer systems. Aimed at library and information system managers.
 
Collection of documents relating to Z39.50 including the Z39.50 information retrieval standard in English and French.
 
Includes details of issues identified by end users who are using Z39.50.
 
Links to various Z39.50 resources that relate to searching databases that have implemented Z39.50. Access to many Z39.50 servers is provided through the LC's WWW/Z39.50 gateway.
 
List of hundreds of library catalogues and other information databases that can be searched using the Z39.50 protocol using BookWhere software, which has a pre
configured list of available hosts and databases. Includes a virtual demonstration of the software.
 
Full text of a report to the British Library Research and Development Department from the CATRIONA 1 project, based at Strathclyde University Library. The study concludes that the idea of a distributed catalogue of Internet resources integrated with standard Z39.50 library system OPAC interfaces (and hence, with retrieval of information on hard copy resources) is already a practical proposition at its most basic level.
 
An overview of the Z39.50 standard explaining what it is and how it works. Identifies the benefits of using Z39.50 implementations, offers a brief history, describes some key technical features, provides examples of some Z39.50 applications, and forecasts the future direction of the standard. Available in PDF only.
 
Discussion paper aimed towards a profile for Z39.50 over HTTP, covering five main issues: Encoding (ASN.1/BER v. character encoding), Statefulness and statelessness, Z39.50 state machine peculiarities,.Transport mechanism: Z39.50 over HTTP, and.Query language or protocol.
 
The MODELS project involves the examination of metadata and the collections they describe. Metadata and collections currently reside in multiple disjointed print and digital resource spaces. MODELS seeks to explain and analyse some of the issues involved in reducing this disjointedness and moving towards more unified access to information systems and resources.
 
Features SIRSI product information, including details about Academe, Oasis and Stilas, library management systems for academic, public and government libraries. Also provides resources about Z39.50, details of seminars, conferences and employment opportunities.
 
This page contains documentation and information relating to the Z39.50 protocol. Various versions of the standard are provided as well as related developments. Information about the US Implementors Group (ZIG) is given, together with articles and tutorials.
 
Conference paper (January 1999) which promotes a standards
based approach to Web-enabled inter-operable information retrieval for cultural networks (such as museums and galleries), using Z39.50 and the associated CIMI (Consortium for Interchange of Museum Information) profile. It presents Z+SQL, the adaptation of the Z39.50 protocol to the SQL domain. By uniting the advantages of the SQL query language with the information retrieval services of Z39.50, Z+SQL presents SQL-enabled cultural communities with a possible solution to their future distributed querying needs, to help facilitate access to their resources.
 
Project aiming to integrate 25 Z39.50 compliant catalogues or information services of CAIRNS sites across Scotland into a functional and user
adaptive test-bed service.
 
Article which describes the different facilities of Z39.50. It aims to equip librarians with enough knowledge to understand what is possible so that they can manage the set
up of Z39.50 servers or talk to vendors about their product's capabilities.
 
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