The Bath Profile and The Journey To Interoperability

1
The Bath ProfileandThe Journey To
Interoperability

• Carrol D Lunau
• Bath Profile Maintenance Agency
• July 7, 2003
• carrol.lunau_at_nlc-bnc.ca

2
Z39.50 Searching what are the difficulties?

• Large result sets
• Records that dont obviously meet the search
  criteria
• Miss records that are in the database
• Difficulties configuring clients for each server

3
Why is a profile needed?

• Z39.50 implementation options
• Different implementer interpretations of the
  standard
• Result User frustration

4
What is a Profile?

• Represents community consensus on requirements
• Identifies Z39.50 specifications to support those
  requirements
• Improves search retrieval results
• Aids in purchasing decisions
• Provides specifications for vendors to build
  Z39.50 products
• Makes client configuration easier

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Role of the Bath Profile

• Provides a core specification for global
  interoperability of Z39.50 servers
• National/regional profiles can build on Bath for
  local requirements
• Objective to increase predictability precision
  in searching library catalogues when desired by
  the searcher

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Development of the Bath Profile

• Lengthy process to reach international consensus
• August 1999 first meeting
• March 2000 Release 1.0
• June 2000 Release 1.1 (Internationally Registered
  Profile)
• March 2003 Release 2.0
• Has been re-submitted to ISO

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Features of the Bath Profile

• Groups related functions requirements into
  functional areas
• Provides 3 levels of conformance
• Modular, can implement all or only specific
  functions
• Must use all 6 use attributes for searches

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Release 1.1

• Three functional areas
• A Basic bibliographic search retrieval
• 2 levels of conformance, 19 searches 6 scans
• B Bibliographic holdings search retrieval
• Not really defined
• C Cross-domain search retrieval
• 2 levels of conformance, 13 searches

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Release 2.0

• Four functional areas
• A Bibliographic search retrieval
• 3 levels of conformance, 29 searches, 3 scans
• B Bibliographic holdings retrieval search
• 2 levels of conformance, 3 ESNs for retrieval
• C Cross-domain search retrieval
• 2 levels of conformance, 13 searches
• D Authority record search retrieval in online
  library catalogues
• 2 levels of conformance, 54 searches, 6 scans

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Changes Level 0 Bibliographic Search Retrieval

• Author search precision match for established
  name heading
• Deleted
• Author search keyword
• Moved to level 0 from level 1

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Changes Level 1 Bibliographic Search Retrieval

• Author searching
• Keyword moved to level 0
• Precision match for established name heading with
  right truncation deleted
• New search for first words in field
• New search for first characters in field
• SCAN
• Title, Subject and Any keyword scans deleted

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Changes Functional Area A syntax specifications

• Requirement for UNIMARC dropped but encouraged
• Z-client required to support MARC21 SUTRS
• Z-server required to support MARC21

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Other changes

• Decided not to reference future work
• Deleted Functional Area B Level 2
• Deleted Appendix A Use of new attribute sets in
  expressing selected searches
• Documents moved to Z39.50 Maintenance Agency
• Appendix B Diagnostics
• Appendix E Creating a search from Scan results
• Functional Area C created ESN for the dtd for
  Dublin Core Simple
• GRS-1 replaced by XML in Functional Area B

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Clarifications

• Use of Term and DisplayTerm
• Z-clients must support Term and DisplayTerm and
  display DisplayTerm if sent. If DisplayTerm is
  not sent, Term must be displayed
• How terms field subfield are used
• Character sets
• If a character set is not negotiated the server
  should assume that the character set is ISO
  Latin-1
• Explanation of how conformant targets should
  handle requests from non-conformant clients

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New Level 2 bibliographic search retrieval

• 10 searches
• Key title search
• keyword
• keyword with right truncation
• exact match
• first words in field
• first characters in field
• Format/Type of material search
• keyword
• phrase
• Language search keyword
• Date of publication range search
• Possessing institution search

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New Bibliographic holdings retrieval search

• Based on work by NISO and DanZIG
• Can conform to level 1 without conforming to
  level 0
• Level 1 conformance requires
• XML record syntax
• Holdings schema
• Support of ESN B-1 and ESN B-2 or ESN C-2
• Version 3 Z39.50

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New Bibliographic holdings retrieval search

• 3 Element Set Names with XML schema definitions
• B-1 BathHoldingsLocationsOnly
• Intended for centralized union catalogues that
  only keep title level holdings
• Can include a symbol and/or name
• B-2 BathHoldingsSummaryInfo
• Intended for union catalogues and catalogues that
  only include summary information for serials
  multi-part titles
• C-2 BathHoldingsCopyInfo
• Intended for virtual union catalogues
  individual catalogues with copy level information
  can include circulation information

18
New Authority record search retrieval

• Searches in indexes containing access points or
  cross references
• Specifications virtually identical to bib search
  but different attributes
• Level 1
• 14 searches, 3 scans
• Level 2
• 39 searches, 3 scans
• Parallels bibliographic search and cross-domain
  search specifications

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Related profiles

• North America
• Z39.89 200x The U.S. National Z39.50 Profile
  for Library Applications
• Z Texas Profile Release 2.0
• Europe
• CENL
• ONE-2 Profile v.2 rev.5

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Z39.89 200x - highlights

• Has been approved is being prepared for
  publication
• Only Bibliographic search retrieval at this
  time but working on holdings as well
• Level 0 searches the same
• Level 1 includes the 15 Bath searches adds 4
  others
• 3 new ISBN, ISSN remote system number
• One, language, is Bath level 2

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Z39.89 200x - highlights

• Level 1 scan identical
• Level 2
• Includes 7 of the 10 Bath searches
• Language is level 2 Bath level 1 in Z39.89
• Different searches for format type of material
• Z39.89 defines 2 keyword searches provides a
  list of codes to use to identify the format
• Bath combines format type of material in one
  search with both keyword phrase searches
  doesnt specify codes
• 40 additional searches, including controlled
  vocabulary pattern searches
• Includes an appendix giving examples of
  profile-defined searches

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Z Texas

• Have adopted Bath version 1.1
• Have added detailed indexing guidelines
• Are developing specifications for search
  retrieval from abstracting indexing systems

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CENL

• Propose to discontinue development of CENL
  profile
• Develop European annex
• Syntax MARC21 UNIMARC
• Z39.50 version 3 to support search terms from
  different attribute sets

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Bath Profile Implementation

• Z39.50 interoperability testbed
• Test scripts
• Have tested clients
• Fretwell-Downing ZPORTAL
• Have tested integrated library systems including
• Dynix
• OCLC
• Inquirion, TeraText
• III
• TLC/CARL
• Middlesex University

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Interoperability are we there yet?

• No

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What do we still need?

• Implementation of the profile
• Address indexing issues
• Do the necessary indexes exist?
• Is the attribute to MARC tag mapping the same?
• Semantic issues with the data
• Initial articles
• Stop-word lists
• Language character set negotiation

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Future of the Bath Profile

• Short term
• ISO IRP
• Modifications based on implementation
• Medium term
• Holdings searching
• New attribute architecture
• Version 3 Z39.50
• Specifications for search retrieval of A I
  systems
• Long term
• Metasearching Z39.50
• Will Z39.89 make Bath redundant?

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Conclusions

• Bath release 2.0 has simplified some
  specifications from release 1.1 and added
  significant functionality
• Progress is slower than we hoped
• The need for interoperability is not going to go
  away - Just do it!