Interfacing libraries to the net - Achievements and standards

Ole Husby

BIBSYS, Norway

Introduction: The hypertext paradigm

Web achievements

Z39.50 enters the scene

Web or Z39.50 or both?

Cataloguing the Internet

More about metadata

1

Ted Nelson (1965):

"[It occurred to me] that the future of humanity is at the interactive computer screen, that the new writing and movies will be interactive and interlinked. It will be united by bridges of transclusion and we need a world-wide network to deliver it with royalty. . . ."

2

Tim Berners-Lee (1989):

"HyperText is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will. It provides a single user-interface to large classes of information (reports, notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line help). We propose a simple scheme incorporating servers already available at CERN. . . ."

3

William Gibson (1986):

"The Sense/Net research library was a dead storage area; the materials stored here had to be physically removed before they could be interfaced. . . ."

4

"Hypertextual structure" is abundant in the material the libraries are treating: Within documents, between documents, between document and metadata, within thesauruses and so on.

5

Web achievements

Many library systems offer Web interface for searching and ordering

HTML FORMS offer an easy method for making nice GUI's

But connecting the Web server to the database is a harder task

Custom software is being replaced by tools from the DBMS vendors

Commercial databases are joining the marketplace

The search "protocol" is visible to the client

6

Z39.50 enters the scene

Problem 1: Web searching is stateless

Problem 2: Web search syntax is not standardized

Problem 3: Web record syntax is not standardized

Solution: Z39.50

7

Z39.50 success is expected

NISO Z39.50 and ISO 10162/10163 (SR) will hopefully merge

Z39.50 on top of TCP/IP is already in heavy use in North America

Europe is joining

But

There is still no Mosaic or Netscape for this protocol

Configuring is still a mess

8

WWW-to-Z39.50 gateways

For users with no Z39.50 client, or

For hosts with no Web server


/---------\                       /-----\                         /--------\
|         | ---- HTTP REQUEST --> |     | --- INIT REQUEST -----> |        |
|         |                       |     | <-- INIT RESPONSE ----- |        |
| WWW     |                       |     | --- SEARCH REQUEST ---> | Z39.50 |
| BROWSER |                       | GW  | <-- SEARCH RESPONSE --- | HOST   |
|         |                       |     | --- PRESENT REQUEST --> |        |
|         |                       |     | <-- PRESENT RESPONSE -- |        |
|         |                       |     | --- CLOSE REQUEST ----> |        |
|         | <--- HTTP RESPONSE -- |     | <-- CLOSE RESPONSE ---- |        |
\---------/                       \-----/                         \--------/

9

Adding Z39.50 capabilities to the Web browser

[ application-x/willow; willow -cf %s ]



/---------\                                   /---------\
|         | ------ SEARCH URL --------------> |         |
|         |                                   | WWW     |
|         | <----- Z39.50 CONFIG FILE ------- | SERVER  |  
| WWW     |                                   |         |
| BROWSER |                                   \---------/
|         | 
|    /---------\                              /---------\
|    |         | ------ INIT REQUEST -------> |         |
|  ====>       | <----- INIT RESPONSE ------- |         |
|    |         | ------ SEARCH REQUEST -----> |         |
\----|         | <----- SEARCH RESPONSE ----- |         |
     | Z39.50  | ------ PRESENT REQUEST ----> | Z39.59  |
     | CLIENT  | <----- PRESENT RESPONSE ---- | HOST    |
     |         | ------ SEARCH REQUEST -----> |         |
     |         | <----- SEARCH RESPONSE ----- |         |
     |         | ............................ |         |
     |         | ------ CLOSE REQUEST ------> |         |
     |         | <----- CLOSE RESPONSE ------ |         |
     \---------/                              \---------/

10

Cataloguing the Internet

The collections of the virtual library are everywhere

Cataloguing rules may not apply

There are no agreements for "shared cataloguing"

Resource locating services are mostly search engines updated by "Web robots"

Some subject trees exist

11

USMARC tag 856

USMARC 856 establishes a link from the bibliographic (surrogate) record to the primary document

OCLC "Internet Cataloging Project" invites libraries to contribute MARC records for networked documents

PICA "WebDOC" project in addition invites publishers to contribute the documents

12

Alternatives to the MARC approach

The MARC effort is too complex

The Web robots are too simple

An alternative: The Dublin Core


Subject:     IETF, URI, Uniform Resource Identifiers
Title:       A Unifying Syntax for the Expression of Names
             and Addresses of Objects on the Network as used 
             in the World-Wide Web.
Author:      Berners-Lee, T.
Publisher:   CERN
Date:        1994
Object-Type: Internet RFC
Form (scheme=IMT): text/plain
Identifier(scheme=URL): gopher://gopher.es.net:70/0R0-57601-/pub/rfcs/rfc1630.txt

13

Metadata efforts by the IETF

Uniform Resource Characteristics

A service to resolve one URN into one or several URL's

Add extrinsic metadata (price, availability . . .)

Add intrinsic metadata (bibliographic data)

Supply metadata to the user

Serve as search engine

Support robots

14

ole.husby@bibsys.no