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The Bath Profileand

The Journey To Interoperability

Carrol D Lunau

Bath Profile Maintenance Agency

July 7, 2003

carrol.lunau@nlc-bnc.ca

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Z39.50 Searching: what are the difficulties?

Large result setsRecords that don’t obviously meet the

search criteriaMiss records that are in the databaseDifficulties configuring clients for each

server

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Why is a profile needed?

Z39.50 implementation optionsDifferent implementer interpretations of

the standard

Result = User frustration

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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 ProfileProvides a core specification for global

interoperability of Z39.50 serversNational/regional profiles can build on

Bath for local requirementsObjective 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 conformanceModular, can implement all or only

specific functionsMust 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

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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 profilesNorth America

Z39.89 – 200x The U.S. National Z39.50 Profile for Library Applications

Z Texas Profile Release 2.0Europe

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 & doesn’t 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 1.1Have added detailed indexing guidelinesAre 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!