# Presentation: 664916

## Z39.50 ProfilesThe Bath Profile

- ZIG MeetingLeuven, BelgiumJuly 2000

**William E. Moen**
- <wemoen@unt.edu>
- School of Library and Information Sciences
- University of North Texas
- Denton, TX  72603

## Profiles

- An auxiliary standards mechanism
- Defines a subset of specifications from one or more standards
- Goal of profiles is to improve interoperability
- Profiles are useful for:
- prescribing how Z39.50 should be used in a particular application environment
- solving interoperability problems with existing Z39.50 implementations within a community or across two or more communities

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Profiles     Z39.50 Specifications

- Represents community consensus on requirements
- Identifies Z39.50 specifications to support those requirements
- Improves search and retrieval results
- Aids in purchasing decisions
- Provides specifications for vendors to build Z39.50 products

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## A Plethora of Z39.50 Profiles!

- Library applications profiles
- The Bath Profile (International)
- ONE-2 and CENL Profiles (Regional and Project)
- DanZIG Profile (National)
- Union Catalogue Profile
- Other information communities’ profiles
- The GILS Profile (government information)
- The CIMI Profile (cultural heritage)
- The Geo Profile (geospatial)
- Application-support profiles
- Zthes Profile (thesaurus profile)
- Check the _[Z39.50 Maintenance Agency site](http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/profiles/profiles.html)_

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Interoperability: The Fundamental Problem

- Ability of client to successfully search and retrieve information in a meaningful way
- Key issue when searching multiple databases containing similar resources
- Difficult problem when searching databases containing diverse types of resources
- Z39.50 **profiles** provide a solution

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Threats to Interoperability

- Differences in **implementation** of the standard
- Differences in **local information retrieval** systems
**Z39.50 cannot improve searchability of resources **
**It can ****only support what local and remote systems offer**

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Levels of Interoperability

- Low-level protocol (syntactic)
- do Z-client and Z-servers interchange PDUs according to standard?
- High-level protocol (functional)
- do Z-client and Z-servers support appropriate Z39.50 services for user tasks
- Semantic level
- can Z-clients and Z-servers and local IR systems preserve and act on meaning of IR tasks

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Interoperability and Z39.50 Searching

- Issues
- Use attributes supported (Z39.50 Implementation)
- Differences in indexing, searchable fields available, search support, etc. (Local IR System)
- Implications
- Different results from similar databases  implemented on separate Z-servers
- Different results on same database when searched locally or through Z39.50

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Interoperability and Z39.50 Retrieval

- Issues
- Z39.50 Record Syntaxes supported (Z39.50 Implementation)
- Capability of local IR system to prepare records in one or more formats for interchange (Local IR System)
- Implications
- Clients and servers may or may not be able to interchange records

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## The Bath Profile

*	*_[The Bath Profile: An International Z39.50 Specification for Library Applications and Resource Discovery, ](http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/bath/current/)__[Release 1.1](http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/bath/current/)_
- Internationally Registered Profile (IRP)
- Enables effective use of Z39.50 in a range of library applications:
- Search and retrieval from library catalogues
- Search and retrieval of bibliographic holdings info
- Cross-domain searching
- Item ordering and document delivery

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Evolution towards Bath

- ATS-1 Profile (1995)
- CENL Profile (1997)
- DanZIG Profile (1997)
- MODELS Profile (1997)
- ONE Profile (1997)
-  Virtual Canadian Union Catalogue Profile (1998)
- The Z Texas Profile (1999)

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Structure of the Profile

- Modular
- Groups related requirements and specifications
- Defines 3 Functional Areas
- Functional Area A: Basic Bibliographic Search & Retrieval
- Functional Area B: Bibliographic Holdings Search & Retrieval
- Functional Area C: Cross-Domain Search & Retrieval
- Defines several Conformance Levels

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Bath Profile Functional Area A

- Basic Bibliographic Search
- Conformance Level 0 (4 searches)
- Author Search — Precision Match for Established Name Heading
- Title Search — Keyword
- Subject Search — Keyword
- Any Search — Keyword
- Conformance Level 1 (15 searches)
- Browsing Indexes
- 6 Scans specified
- Basic Bibliographic Retrieval
- Combination of UNIMARC or MARC21, and
- SUTRS and/or XML

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Summary of Bib-1 Attributes Required

| Attribute Type | Attribute Values | Attribute Name |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Use (1) | 4, 21, 31, 1003, 1007, 1016 | title, subject heading, date of publication, author, identifier-standard, any |
| Relation (2) | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 | less than, less than or equal, equal, greater than or equal, greater than |
| Position (3) | 1, 3 | first in field, any position in field |
| Structure (4) | 1, 2, 101 | phrase, word, normalized |
| Truncation (5) | 1, 100 | right truncation, do not truncate |
| Completeness (6) | 1, 3 | incomplete subfield, complete field |

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Bath Profile Functional Area B

- Bibliographic Holdings Search and Retrieval
- Requires new Holdings Schema
- Conformance Level 1 defines two Element Set Names
- Locations Only
- Locations, Summary Information, and Count if available
- Work on this functional area will be completed in Fall 2000.

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Bath Profile Functional Area C

- Cross-Domain Search and Retrieval
- Defines two levels
- Conformance Level 0 (4 searches)
- Creator Search — Keyword
- Title Search — Keyword
- Subject Search — Keyword
- Any Search — Keyword
- Level 1 (9 searches)
- SUTRS and XML as record syntaxes
- Dublin Core DTD for XML record syntax
- Conformance Level 2 will specify Cross Domain and Utility Attribute Sets

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Addressing Interoperability

- Identify searching requirements (tasks)
- Several levels of searching: recall-oriented, precision-oriented
- Defining the searches (semantics and behavior)
- Specifying Z39.50 query to represent the search
- Standard combination of Z39.50 Attribute Types and Values
- Clients must send all attribute type values specified
- Servers must be able to process all values
- Suggested mapping and indexing of local systems (e.g., MARC fields to index, etc.)

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Level 0 Title Keyword Search

| Attribute Type | Attribute Value | Attribute Names |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Use (1) | 4 | Title |
| Relation (2) | 3 | Equal |
| Position (3) | 3 | Any |
| Structure (4) | 2 | Word |
| Truncation (5) | 100 | Do not truncate |
| Completeness (6) | 1 | Incomplete subfield |

- Uses: Searches for complete word in a title of a resource.

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Level 1 Title First Words in Field

| Attribute Type | Attribute Value | Attribute Names |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Use (1) | 4 | Title |
| Relation (2) | 3 | Equal |
| Position (3) | 1 | First in field |
| Structure (4) | 1 | Phrase |
| Truncation (5) | 100 | Do not truncate |
| Completeness (6) | 1 | Incomplete subfield |

- Uses: Searches for complete word(s) in the order specified in fields that contain a title of a resource. The field must begin with the specified character string. This search is useful when the beginning words in a title are known to the user.

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Bath as Core Specifications

- National and regional profiles based on the Bath Profile
- DanZIG Profile
- ONE-2 Profile
- CENL Profile
- Compatible supersets of Bath
- Addressing how different profiles will work together
- Bath and CIMI
- Bath and GILS

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Z Texas and Bath

- Z Texas Profile
- Z Texas as companion profile to Bath
- Z Texas as compatible superset of Bath
- Final revisions to Z Texas to harmonize with Bath
- Continuing development on Texas-specific requirements:
- for searching
- for retrieval
- for addressing other types of information
- A US National Profile – developed by NISO

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Next Steps: Indexing Guidance

- Prescribing Z39.50 implementation specifications is half the battle
- Developing indexing and mapping guidance is necessary
- Can we as a community define a standard way to  index bibliographic data?

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Next Steps:Assuring Quality of Products

- Approaches
- Taking the vendor’s word for it
- Conformance testing
- Interoperability testing
- Challenges of interoperability testing
- Rigorous methodology
- Tests for different levels of interoperability
- Metrics for benchmarks and comparison
- Setting up an interop testbed

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000

## Z Texas and Bath Profile Resources

- Bath Profile
*Copy of draft profile*
**http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/activities/z3950/int_profile/bath/draft/**
*Listserv for Discussion*
** ****ZIP-PIZ-L ** (subscribe by sending message to:
- 		LISTSERV@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA)
- Z Texas Profile
*Project Website*
- http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/projects/z3950/
*TZIG Member List*
- http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/projects/z3950/committee.htm
*Texas Z39.50 Listserv*
- http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/projects/z3950/list.htm

- Z39.50 Profiles -- ZIG Meeting Leuven, July 2000