Z TEXAS MEETING

Tuesday, November 13, 2001
9:00am - 4:00pm
Main Conference Room
Amigos Library Services, Inc.
14400 Midway Road
Dallas, Texas
800-843-8482

Map to Amigos offices

Z39.50
Home | Implementation Resources

Attendees:

Virginia Allen, Lamar University Library
Cathy Hartman, University of North Texas, co-chair
Chrisanne Brown, OCLC
Caroline Geer, LeTourneau University
William E. Moen, University of North Texas
Bob Gaines, Central Texas Library System
Slavko Manojlovich, Memorial University of Newfoundland
David Schuster, Plano Independent School District
Valerie Johnson, Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Kevin Marsh, Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Christine Peterson, Amigos Library Services

[Words in maroon indicate items that have been assigned to someone.]

Updates from last meeting:

• Texas Z server information
  • Add sites from Slavko Manolovich's page
  • Check Holly Gordon's list of servers and, if applicable, add sites
  • Contact Marilyn Johnson to see if she can update this page directly
  • Add the server for the University of North Texas
  • Delete the server for the University of Texas at Austin
  • Discussion:
    • Add Source of Holdings as another column? -- will wait on this
    • How much farther should we go in updating this list? Should find someone else to do this. Possibly:
      • use the technology inventory from Library of Texas to help
      • have TLA preconference attendees provide this information
    • Create a template of server information that should be posted to each site's web site
    • SIRSI is creating profiles for each version of each ILS; maybe we need an Explain LITE requirement in Z Texas
    • Use robot software from IndexData to get information from each server?
    • Kevin Marsh will explore how to create a Z client gateway and link directly from a list of servers. By clicking on list of servers, a search will be done against them
• Follow-up on virtual union catalog project (Bill Moen)
  • ZLOT - Z Texas Implementation Component of The Library of Texas
  • Ten-month project focusing on the virtual catalog and search & retrieval interface; also develop framework for document delivery, but no implementation
  • A proof of concept (using 20-30 libraries), allowing the Texas State Library to see if this would work and if so, if it would be used
  • A technology inventory will be done for academic and public libraries
  • "Virtual union catalog" phrase not representative; another name is needed; for now, use "virtual library"
• Interoperability testbed (Bill Moen)
  • Bill has issued a call for participation for libraries, ILS vendors, and Z39.50 developers
  • This testbed will be testing Z clients and servers for Bath Functional Area A, Level 0 and retrieval of MARC 21 records
  • Partners are OCLC, BookWhere, and SIRSI
  • Phase 2 will being in spring 2002 and will consider Bath Functional Area A, Level 1
  • This group should consider the possibility of using this as part of a bid document
• Creating section on web site for implementation resources (Cathy Hartman)
  • Cathy Hartman put out a call for volunteers to help with gathering implementation resources. Gloria McClanahan, Bill Tandy, and Jeanette Mosely were interested.
  • Cathy will ask them to coordinate putting up such a site and send it to Marilyn Johnson
• Z Texas client (Bob Gaines)
  • Rob Bull is working on the final piece for this client -- adding Texas targets; should be available in early 2002
  • Discussion:
    • Who will maintain the configuration file? Slavko can create the initial list; possibly the same person can maintain the server list and the configuration file and post it to the web
    • Slavko will create the initial list; it will be posted to CTLS web site
    • Rob has another Z client which deals with XML, holdings, self-configuration and explain-lite - ICONE client
• LITA Proxy Web Server and Authentication Institute - rescheduled to Friday, February 22, 2002 in San Antonio (Chris Peterson)
• Response from Bath group concerning switching the letters denoting Functional Areas C and D (Chris Peterson)
  • Each Functional Area and Level would have its own OID, so we could use Functional Area C to mean anything we like
• RFP languages for Z39.50 functionality in integrated library systems (Chris Peterson)
  • Chris will work with Bill Moen to add the interoperability testbed
• Revised scope statement (Chris Peterson)
  • Discussion:
    • Change: we want to search bibliographic data and abstracts; not searching unstructured text
    • In FirstSearch, there are A&I databases; some with full text and some without
    • We want to make it clear that we are not searching the full text
    • However, the search & retrieval of structured metadata that may result in full text or full image

Texas Library Association conference:

• Preconference: Z39.50: The Last Mile -- Tuesday, April 23, 2002, 8:30am - noon
• We're looking for presiders for these sessions. Contact Chris Peterson if you are interested.

Z39.50 and firewalls (Slavko Manojlovich):

• Some sites will not provide a way through a firewall
• Many libraries have no system administrator -- the vendor may have to provide this function

Access points for full text/A&I databases (Functional Area D):

• Who are the users and what is the situation?
  • Graduate students/narrow topic/multiple databases/exhaustive search
  • Undergraduate students/needs just an item on a topic like gun control/only needs a few articles to choose from/single search
  • Bibliography - e.g., 10 newspaper articles, 5 monographs; type of media is important/ number of print materials and number of electronic materials
• Ability to find age appropriate materials
• Ability to search specific databases
• Ability to search a specific journal when you don't know which database it is in
• Ability to do expert searches - need native interface for this
  • cross domain search - resource discovery
  • then use native interface
• Ability to determine which citations are full-text
• Ability to link the citation to library holdings (yours or anyone's)
• Ability to determine which citations have images in them
• Ability to search by domain or URL; becomes publisher-type search
• Ability to search references (footnotes, bibliography) or not
• Ability to limit by date, e.g., to find current citations on legal/medical information
• Ability to sort retrieved records
  • by relevance
  • by Last In, First Out
  • by date
• Ability to limit by language
• Ability to search or limit by geographic area - ex., statistics in a specific country (not to be misunderstood as latitude/longitude)
• Ability to search by subject or descriptor
• High recall/high precision
• Users need to be able to use web browser
• Expert users can use Z client which has a similar interface to what they normally use (e.g., ILS?)

• Level 0 - high recall search
  
  
  • Author keyword (article, chapter, piece, specific item, book reviewer)
  • Title keyword (title of the article, chapter, poem, piece)
  • Subject/descriptor/keyword as a field/identifiers (named person, biographee, geographic place, name of book reviewed)
  • Any (server choice - must include at a minimum au, ti, su, but may include other fields)
  • Phrase -any
    
    

• Level 1

  • Phrase search in "any" or other keyword searches; adjacency of words within a field, in order (e.g.., "hang gliding")
  • Qualifiers - date, date range, language, includes presence of images or full-text
  • Format (for further discussion)
  • Journal title search - source title
  • Abstract or description field search
  • Right truncation (104? 101?)
  • Standard number, generic - ISSN, ERIC, DDC, LCCN, engineering #
    
    
• Level 2
  
  
  • Audience
  • Search thesaurus profile
  • Descriptor /thesaurus scheme
  • Left or internal truncation
  • Domain/URL

   

Next Meeting:

• Thursday, February 21, 2002 in San Antonio
• Will focus on Functional Area D

Handouts:

• Agenda Minutes from June 29, 2001 meeting in Austin
• Texas Z39.50 Server Information (from web)
• Accessible SIRSI Z39.50 Servers in Texas (from Slavko Manojlovich)
• Z-LOT: The Z Texas Implementation Component of The Library of Texas (from Bill Moen)
• Revised Scope, Goals and Objectives statement
• Draft bid language for Z39.50 functionality within an ILS
• Possible Ideas to be Used in Profile for Full Text/A&I Databases

Work assigned:

• Christine Peterson:
  • Add sites from Slavko Manolovich's page
  • Check Holly Gordon's list of servers and, if applicable, add sites
  • Contact Marilyn Johnson to see if she can update this page directly
  • Add the server for the University of North Texas Delete the server for the University of Texas at Austin
  • Will work with Bill Moen to add the interoperability testbed to the bid specifications
• Kevin Marsh
  • Explore how to create a Z client gateway and link directly from a list of servers. By clicking on list of servers, a search will be done against them
• Cathy Hartman
  • Will ask volunteers to coordinate putting up web pages with Z39.50 implementation aids and send it to Marilyn Johnson for posting
• Slavko Manojlovich
  • Will create the initial list of servers for the Z Texas client; it will be posted to CTLS web site
• Bill Moen
  • Will work with Chris Peterson to add the interoperability testbed to the bid specifications

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