Z39.50 provides a very useful tool for intersystem communication, but it also demonstrates that differences in language and culture have an impact on the scope and usefulness of international services.
A number of problems arise when implementing Z39.50 in a multi-national and multi-lingual environment. In the U.S. implementers group, these problems are not always obvious.
Problems that are being identified by current implementers in Europe include differences in character sets between countries, different sorting order of characters in different languages, different rules for conversion from 8-bit to 7-bit ASCII for indexing dependent on country and language, difficulties in translating system messages, variety of MARC formats and differences in cataloguing rules between countries.
Internationalisation of the standard can solve some of the problems. Hopefully, through the implementation and use of EXPLAIN some of the others can be explained to users. The aim should be to make it possible, through Z39.50, to provide services to a wide international audience, respecting the multitude of cultures and languages in the world.