August 1999 ZIG Meeting, Stockholm -- Status Reports

Updated: September 17, 1999

Attendees: Please send status reports to rden@loc.gov

Michael Selway, System Simulation
At the moment we are doing more selling, configuring, and installing than developing of the Index+/Z39.50 server gateway. We are seeing sustained interest from museums, academia, and local government. We are planning to add support for SCAN to the target. Following involvement in the development of the CIMI profile, the Aquarelle project profile and the ZThes profiles, our profiling efforts are now directed at use of XML for expressing and exchanging information, particularly in museums.
Judith Pearce, National Library of Australia
In March this year, the National Library of Australia successfully migrated the Australian National Bibliographic Database to a (fee-based) Z39.50 AMICUS server. A project to implement support on this server for the Union catalogue Profile has commenced, with a twelve month development timeframe. The Library is currently evaluating responses to a request for quotation for a Metadata Repository and Search System (http://www.nla.gov.au/dsp/rfq/index.html ) that is required to be Z39.50-enabled.
Slavko Manojlovich, SIRSI Corporation / Memorial University Of Newfoundland
Over the past 6 months SIRSI has been actively involved in the development of the Z Texas Profile and the related International Profile. In preparation for the interoperability testing associated with the Z Texas Profile in 2000, SIRSI is configuring its Z39.50 clients and servers to conform with the requirements of the Texas/International profiles. Compliance with these profiles will include support for the new Holdings Schema endorsed by the ZIG at its recent meeting in Stockholm. Related URLS:
Mikko Kalliosalo, Sunstone Systems
Sunstone Systems is an IR consulting company that has been involved in Z39.50 for more than three years. Our product Sunstone Z39.50 Server is a Z39.50 - 1995 Target for the BRS/Search free text search engine from Dataware Technologies. The server uses the ZedJAVA toolkit from Crossnet. We are just now releasing version 2.0 of the server with support for all record formats. We have done Z39.50 consulting for places like the LIBRIS department at the Royal Library of Sweden and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. We are currently looking into the area of stateful WWW to Z39.50 gateways.
Barbara Shuh, National Library of Canada
On 16 August 1999, the National Library of Canada has opened up the access to their AMICUS Z39.50 target and released two new Z39.50 services: Access AMICUS via Z39.50 (fee-based) and National Library of Canada Catalogue via Z39.50 (free). http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/amicus/nlccat-e.htm "explains" how to access this target:
Leif Andresen, Danish National Library Authority
About 21/2 years ago we set up a national implementation group, called danZIG and in November last year danZIG defined LEVEL 1/SEARCH of the danZIG profile. The specification includes an extensive list of a combination of use, structure and completeness attributes, according to a part of BIB-1 defined in the profile and in addition a specific Danish attribute set called DAN-1. In June 1999 we defined the next level - LEVEL 1 - to include OPAC Holdings and ILL-request and ILL-status-query.
In Denmark we are running a major project called The Danish Electronic Research Library, which entails the upgrading of a large number of library systems. One condition for obtaining funds from the project for upgrading purposes is that the new system should support Z39.50 and the danZIG profile.
We also have a development programme for public libraries, which supports co-operation between small public libraries and other public libraries. It is a requirement that a system supports the danZIG profile.
It is further our plan that the first implementations of the danZIG profile LEVEL 1 with holdings shall take place early next year. Participants will be the 12 large research libraries and the Danish Union Catalogue.

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