Z39.50 calls these formats record syntaxes, and Section 6.4.3.5. The following sections provide additional details about the functionality supported by the Profile for search and retrieval. Z39.50 profile specifies the appropriate access points for a given application. The CIMI Profile's application area is cultural heritage information. Therefore, the standard list of access points includes those appropriate for searching museum object record databases, image databases, and bibliographic databases.
Searches often consist of a search term and information about that term.
To allow a user to search multiple databases associated with one or more servers, it is necessary to standardize the expression of the search so that the client and server can communicate unambiguously. This is accomplished by defining an attribute set that identifies a list of access points and additional information used to characterize search terms and express a query in a standard way. The CIMI-1 Attribute Set also reflects emerging agreements within the broader museum community on a set of access points systems should support for searching. The Attribute Set provides the mechanism for the client and server to share a common understanding, or lingua franca , for purposes of searching. When a user submits a search, for example, on provenance information, a server's database may or may not have provenance as a single access point, and it is up to the server implementor to map a search on provenance to the appropriate local database fields or indexes.