Z TEXAS MEETING

Friday, September 24, 1999
9:00am - 5:00pm
Rice University
Fondren Library
Kyle Morrow Room
Houston, Texas

Z39.50
Home | Implementation Resources

Attendees:

Valli Hoski, University of North Texas
Amy Stults, Abilene Christian University
Cathy Hartman, University of North Texas
Tim Judkins, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Virginia Allen, Lamar University
Teresa Lepchenske, University of North Texas
Shelley Almgren, Texas Wesleyan University
Teresa Ashley, Austin Community College
Richard Wilson, Auto-Graphics
Sharon Castleberry, Carrollton Public Libraries
Scott Piepenburg, Dallas Public Schools
Caroline Geer, LeTourneau University
Bill Moen, University of North Texas
Christine Peterson, Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Slavko Manojlovich, SIRSI/Memorial University of Newfoundland, CANADA

Welcome, Introductions, and Agenda Review

Information Items

• Central Texas Library System (CTLS) Purchase of Z39.50 Client

Bob Gaines (Automation Consultant, CTLS) is purchasing a Z39.50 client from Cross Net and which will be customized for CTLS' use and will incorporate the Z Texas Profile.  Although CTLS is paying for it, it will then be available at no charge to other Texas libraries.

Client is to provide easy access is to download MARC records for use in cataloging.  Discussion ensued concerning the use of bibliographic records (particularly OCLC's) in this way.  Bob received a statement from the OCLC attorney stating that, unless libraries have specific agreements or contracts that say otherwise, OCLC and Amigos records should be shareable among libraries.  Please contact Bob for more details.

Documents/issues related to sharing records that should be referenced from the web site:

• Letter from OCLC attorney
• OCLC's Spirit of Cooperation document (Shelley)
• Outline issues in copy cataloging (including discussion of possible sharing records between academics and K-12 libraries)

• TLA Resolution

Passed unanimously by TLA; resolution on Z Texas and GODORT web sites:
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/z3950/tlaresolution.html

• Other States' Interest in Z Texas

Idaho -- Released an RFP that states that the product/service should be conformant to Z Texas Profile (whatever that turned out to be).

State Library in Illinois -- excited by Profile -- Texas has done some of the work that they don't have to do; providing vendor contacts to them so they can lobby their vendors for compliance; Bill going to Illinois Library Association meeting to discuss Z Texas Profile.

California -- has made a recommendation that the state not to do something California-centric, but use Z Texas Profile instead.

Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) -- Is asking questions as to whether this profile will become a national standard; possibility of having IMLS requests require Z39.50 for projects where it is applicable

• UNT's Z39.50 Seminar and Interoperability Testing

Goal -- methodology for interoperability testing; currently installing public domain Z39.50 server; will be configuring to support one or more profiles;

• Dallas ISD

Client should be online soon (Ameritech)

• UNT

Server and client purchased (Innovative)

• Le Tourneau

CONTEC has Z39.50 capability; asking vendor for guidance in implementation

• Abilene Library Consortium

On DRA; will implement Taos, which has Z39.50 capability

• TSLAC SIRSI Z39.50 Profile Training

Labor intensive to implement; not all pieces are implementable yet, but are promised; possibility of have a pre-configured Z Texas Z39.50 module for new users; concern in time to implement a profile for those already using it -- cannot provide an update or patch to automatically conform; each site will have to make changes to conform.

Bath Profile and Relationship to Z Texas

Reflects agreements from that meeting; will review and put out for public comment in November; our comments should stay within this group until the that time.

Retains basic structure of:
    Functional Area A  (Catalog Search)
        Level 0
        Level 1
    Functional Area B (Holdings)
    Functional Area C (Cross-Domain)
        Level 0
        Level 1

Issues:

• Will the searches and attribute combinations meet the needs of Texas?
• Requirements of SUTURS at the Bath first level
• Holdings Schema is in its last review; neither our group nor the Bath group was able to specify attribute combination yet; yet this is very important for both groups; as soon as the last review is done, specifications should be created relatively quickly

Texas Profile could use the Bath Profile as a base; Texas could then add their own requirements above that; one result would be that other geographic regions/areas might/would have their own additional requirements.

Differences in the two profiles using Bath's numbering system:

We have asked that:

• Another Author Search -- Precision Match for Established Name Heading be created -- using Right Truncation
• 5.2.1.1, 5.2.1.5, and 5.1.2.9 be reconsidered (but see my email about my reconsideration of this request)
• 5.1.1.2, 5.1.1.3, and 5.1.1.4 (keyword searches for author, title subject) be reviewed to add truncation; concerns revolve around the structure attribute; if structure "word" is used, then each search term would be truncated and the terms would use the default Boolean operator; if structure "phrase" is used, then the end of the last search term would be truncated and it would be searched as a string when most people would prefer a Boolean search.  Possibility of requiring the user to use specific characters to indicate the type and number of characters used in truncation.
• 5.1.1.2 (keyword for titles) we had asked to search all (4), series (5), and uniform (6) titles; since both series and uniform titles should already be indexed under all (4), we deleted both 5 and 6.
• 5.1.2.4 (precise match for titles) we had asked to provide right truncation and incomplete field attributes
• 5.1.2.12 (standard numbers) we had asked the structure attribute be phrase, as some of these numbers have spaces

We found out that:

• For the Position attribute, first in subfield is meaningless

Even if the Bath Profile does not include fields and subfields for indexing purposes, Z Texas will provide MARC 21 and/or UNIMARC in an appendix

Action Items:

• Review MARC tags used for specific searches for Z Texas Profile
• Create UNIMARC tags to support this profile
• Bill will check to be sure this is correct (according to Bib-1 Attribute 1997/97):
  • Phrase truncation -- word truncation at the end of the phrase
  • Word truncation -- word truncation at the end of the word
  • Word List truncation -- truncation at the end of each word in the phrase
• Ask if another set of truncation examples be done (in or in addition to the Zeeman document) which include how the Structure attributes influence truncation
• Provide Bill with feedback on which searches are in each category.  Currently, the Bath Profile outlines the following searches in each category:
  • Level 0
    • Author Search - Precision Match for Established Name Heading
    • Title Search - Keyword with No Truncation
    • Subject Search - Keyword with No Truncation
    • Single Keyword Search Against Common (server-defined) Access Points with No Truncation
  • Level 1
    • Author Search - Keyword with No Truncation
    • Author Search - Keyword with Right Truncation
    • Title Search - Keyword with Right Truncation
    • Title Search - Precision Match
    • Title Search - Match First Words in Title with No Truncation
    • Title Search - Match First Words in Title With Right Truncation
    • Subject Search - Keyword with Right Truncation
    • Subject Search - Precision Match
    • Subject Search - Match First Words in Subject Heading with No Truncation
    • Subject Search - Match First Words in Subject Heading with Right Truncation
    • Single Keyword Search Against Common (Z-Server defined) Access Points with Right Truncation
    • Standard Identifier Search
    • Date of Publication Search
  • Does Bath levels 0 and 1 = Z Texas Level 1 except for date of publication and standard identifier?
• Check local systems to see how truncation works both in browse and scan; is implicit or explicit truncation used?  Please send information to the discussion list
  III -- explicit truncation
  DRA -- implicit truncation

Record Retrieval

The Bath Profile requires SUTRS at its lowest level; questions/information we would like to know before making a decision on whether we support this or not:

• How difficult is it for an ILS to implement?
• How many systems support only UNIMARC?  Are looking into supporting it soon?
• Systems are moving toward UNIMARC anyway; isn't SUTRS a stop gap measure?
• How many Texas systems support import/export UNIMARC?  Is it already there?
• Publicly available software that will translate USMARC to UNIMARC and vice versa is currently being used
• What are the differences?  Should we get a copy of UNIMARC tag manual for comparison? 
• Are there already articles/web sites thatcompare UNIMARC and USMARC?
• Can we make this MARC/UNIMARC conversion a client side issue?  The server sends what it has; the client understands and translates, if necessary.
• We recommend the use of UNIMARC and/or USMARC; use client has translator; or use server as translator; if SUTRS becomes part of the Bath Profile at a low level, Texas might ask for time before it is able to implement

January 2000 ZIG Meeting

San Antonio, January 19-21 (Wed - Fri)
New format:  Wed (tutorial day); Thurs (working group meetings); Fri (plenary session)
NISO may sponsor Tues basic Z39.50 tutorial with Bill as speaker
ZIG tutorial -- presentations for managers, reference librarians, technical implementation staff (2-3 tracks)
TZIG would co-sponsor with UNT and TSLAC

TLA Session

Subject will be Z Texas implementation experiences; those who are starting to implement or thinking about implementing should contact Chris Peterson, who is putting the program together

Bill will be doing a session on the Z Texas Profile and metatags; more information to follow

Next Steps

Continue with educational documents

Review Z Texas for possible updating

Depending on what happens with the Bath Profile, we may be ready to look at other projects:

• Dublin Core
• Full-text databases
• Holdings information

Next meeting -- Austin, Monday, November 22, 1999

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