Canada
The Bath Profileand
The Journey To Interoperability
Carrol D Lunau
Bath Profile Maintenance Agency
July 7, 2003
Canada
Z39.50 Searching: what are the difficulties?
Large result setsRecords that don’t obviously meet the
search criteriaMiss records that are in the databaseDifficulties configuring clients for each
server
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Why is a profile needed?
Z39.50 implementation optionsDifferent implementer interpretations of
the standard
Result = User frustration
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What is a Profile? Represents community consensus on requirements Identifies Z39.50 specifications to support those
requirements Improves search & retrieval results Aids in purchasing decisions Provides specifications for vendors to build
Z39.50 products Makes client configuration easier
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Role of the Bath ProfileProvides a core specification for global
interoperability of Z39.50 serversNational/regional profiles can build on
Bath for local requirementsObjective to increase predictability &
precision in searching library catalogues when desired by the searcher
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Development of the Bath Profile
Lengthy process to reach international consensus August 1999 first meeting March 2000 Release 1.0 June 2000 Release 1.1 (Internationally Registered
Profile) March 2003 Release 2.0
Has been re-submitted to ISO
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Features of the Bath Profile
Groups related functions & requirements into ‘functional areas’
Provides 3 levels of conformanceModular, can implement all or only
specific functionsMust use all 6 use attributes for searches
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Release 1.1 Three functional areas
A: Basic bibliographic search & retrieval 2 levels of conformance, 19 searches & 6 scans
B: Bibliographic holdings search & retrieval Not really defined
C: Cross-domain search & retrieval 2 levels of conformance, 13 searches
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Release 2.0 Four functional areas
A: Bibliographic search & retrieval 3 levels of conformance, 29 searches, 3 scans
B: Bibliographic holdings retrieval & search 2 levels of conformance, 3 ESNs for retrieval
C: Cross-domain search & retrieval 2 levels of conformance, 13 searches
D: Authority record search & retrieval in online library catalogues
2 levels of conformance, 54 searches, 6 scans
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Changes: Level 0 Bibliographic Search & Retrieval
Author search – precision match for established name heading Deleted
Author search – keyword Moved to level 0 from level 1
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Changes: Level 1 Bibliographic Search & Retrieval
Author searching Keyword moved to level 0 Precision match for established name heading with
right truncation deleted New search for first words in field New search for first characters in field
SCAN Title, Subject and Any keyword scans deleted
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Changes: Functional Area A syntax specifications
Requirement for UNIMARC dropped but encouraged Z-client required to support MARC21 &
SUTRS Z-server required to support MARC21
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Other changes Decided not to reference future work
Deleted Functional Area B Level 2 Deleted Appendix A: Use of new attribute sets in
expressing selected searches Documents moved to Z39.50 Maintenance
Agency Appendix B: Diagnostics Appendix E: Creating a search from Scan results
Functional Area C: created ESN for the dtd for Dublin Core Simple
GRS-1 replaced by XML in Functional Area B
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Clarifications Use of Term and DisplayTerm
Z-clients must support Term and DisplayTerm and display DisplayTerm if sent. If DisplayTerm is not sent, Term must be displayed
How terms field & subfield are used Character sets
If a character set is not negotiated the server should assume that the character set is ISO Latin-1
Explanation of how conformant targets should handle requests from non-conformant clients
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New: Level 2 bibliographic search & retrieval
10 searches Key title search
keyword keyword with right truncation exact match first words in field first characters in field
Format/Type of material search keyword phrase
Language search – keyword Date of publication range search Possessing institution search
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New: Bibliographic holdings retrieval & search
Based on work by NISO and DanZIG Can conform to level 1 without conforming to
level 0 Level 1 conformance requires
XML record syntax Holdings schema Support of ESN B-1 and ESN B-2 or ESN C-2 Version 3 Z39.50
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New: Bibliographic holdings retrieval & search
3 Element Set Names with XML schema definitions B-1: BathHoldingsLocationsOnly
Intended for centralized union catalogues that only keep title level holdings
Can include a symbol and/or name B-2: BathHoldingsSummaryInfo
Intended for union catalogues and catalogues that only include summary information for serials & multi-part titles
C-2: BathHoldingsCopyInfo Intended for virtual union catalogues & individual catalogues
with copy level information – can include circulation information
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New: Authority record search & retrieval
Searches in indexes containing access points or cross references
Specifications virtually identical to bib search but different attributes
Level 1 14 searches, 3 scans
Level 2 39 searches, 3 scans
Parallels bibliographic search and cross-domain search specifications
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Related profilesNorth America
Z39.89 – 200x The U.S. National Z39.50 Profile for Library Applications
Z Texas Profile Release 2.0Europe
CENL ONE-2 Profile v.2 rev.5
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Z39.89 – 200x - highlights
Has been approved & is being prepared for publication
Only Bibliographic search & retrieval at this time but working on holdings as well
Level 0 searches the same Level 1 includes the 15 Bath searches & adds 4
others 3 new: ISBN, ISSN & remote system number One, language, is Bath level 2
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Z39.89 – 200x - highlights
Level 1 scan – identical Level 2
Includes 7 of the 10 Bath searches Language is level 2 Bath & level 1 in Z39.89 Different searches for format & type of material
Z39.89 defines 2 keyword searches & provides a list of codes to use to identify the format
Bath combines format & type of material in one search with both keyword & phrase searches & doesn’t specify codes
40 additional searches, including controlled vocabulary pattern searches
Includes an appendix giving examples of profile-defined searches
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Z Texas
Have adopted Bath version 1.1Have added detailed indexing guidelinesAre developing specifications for search
& retrieval from abstracting & indexing systems
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CENL
Propose to discontinue development of CENL profile
Develop European annex Syntax: MARC21 & UNIMARC Z39.50 version 3 to support search terms
from different attribute sets
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Bath Profile Implementation
Z39.50 interoperability testbed Test scripts Have tested clients
Fretwell-Downing ZPORTAL Have tested integrated library systems including
Dynix OCLC Inquirion, TeraText III TLC/CARL Middlesex University
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Interoperability – are we there yet?
No
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What do we still need? Implementation of the profile Address indexing issues
Do the necessary indexes exist? Is the attribute to MARC tag mapping the same?
Semantic issues with the data Initial articles Stop-word lists
Language & character set negotiation
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Future of the Bath Profile Short term
ISO IRP Modifications based on implementation
Medium term Holdings searching New attribute architecture Version 3 Z39.50 Specifications for search & retrieval of A & I systems
Long term Metasearching & Z39.50 Will Z39.89 make Bath redundant?
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Conclusions Bath release 2.0 has simplified some
specifications from release 1.1 and added significant functionality
Progress is slower than we hoped
The need for interoperability is not going to go away - Just do it!