Background for the Study

Over the last 100 years, the development and use of three technical standards have provided the infrastructure that enabled libraries to extend their services and resources globally:

• The standardization of the library catalog card's contents and structure
  
• The MARC record format for bibliographic information interchange
  
• The national and international standard for information retrieval, ANSI/NISO Z39.50.

This standards-based infrastructure has enabled resource sharing vital to libraries and has improved information access for library users.

To better serve their users' needs, libraries have been purchasing and implementing sophisticated integrated information systems to provide increased access to global information resources. A key technology to improve integrated access to distributed resources is the national and international information retrieval protocol, ANSI/NISO
Z39.50/ISO 23950, Information Retrieval (Z39.50): Application Service Definition and Protocol Specification (National Information Standards Organizations, 1995). (For an overview of Z39.50, see Attachment C.).

The Z39.50 standard is a computer-to-computer protocol for information retrieval. Based on a client/server architecture, it defines a way for information stored in large databases (e.g., library catalogs, abstracting and indexing services records) to be searched and retrieved through a standardized interface. The Z39.50 standard masks the differences between information retrieval systems, since users interact with their system's familiar user interface to search multiple resources as if they were locally available, and to retrieve and display records from those resources in a common format.

Even with the proliferation of the World Wide Web, communications protocols, and commercially available search engines, Z39.50's functionality has not been matched. Z39.50 offers a level of interoperability that is at the heart of a library's mission: it allows a library's resources and holdings to be accessed and shared widely, and in a sense, provides an open door to a library's collection.

In the early 1990s, as vendors and libraries began developing Z39.50 implementations, the Coalition for Networked Information sponsored the first Z39.50 interoperability testbed. Its focus was to jump start use of Z39.50 and assist developers in resolving basic, technical protocol interoperability issues (e.g., being able to get two systems to communicate, create and interchange properly structured protocol messages, etc.). Protocol interoperability testing verifies that Z39.50 messages are being exchanged consistently. We now take such basic Z39.50 protocol interoperability for granted, but a new set of interoperability barriers have been identified. The basic, technical level is a critical foundation, but it leaves open the question of how implementations working within a common context like library catalogs interpret Z39.50 messages. Unless the interpretation is consistent, users cannot rely on the responses. The term semantic interoperability refers to this level of interoperability issues.

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Project Proposal Pages

Contents of Project Proposal - Abstract - Statement of the Problem - Project Goals and Objectives - Background for the Study - Need and Justification- Project Foci and Activities - Impact and Benefits of the Project - Project Deliverables - Project Staff - Addressing IMLS Priorities and Criteria - National Impact - Adaptability - Design - Management Plan - Budget - Personnel - Evaluation - Dissemination - Contributions - Sustainability and Technical Knowledge - Summery- References

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