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National
Information Standards
Organization (NISO) |
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Developing a U.S. National Z39.50 Profile for Library Applications |
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National
Information Standards
Organization (NISO) |
|
|
Developing a U.S. National Z39.50 Profile for Library Applications |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
MEETING 1 SUMMARY
Prepared by William E. Moen, Chair
| Home Charge Meetings Resources |
This document provides a summary of the first meeting of the National Information Standards Committee (NISO) AV that is charged with the development of a U.S. National Z39.50 Profile for Library Applications. Members of SC AV met for 1.5 days to begin its work to prepare a draft standard that NISO will submit for voting by its voting members. This summary does not detail all discussions at the meeting but rather is meant to communicate the important decisions and agreements based on committee discussion. This summary is ordered based on the agenda of the meeting. Fourteen committee members attended the first meeting of NISO Standards Committee AV (SC AV). A list of the attendees is available. A list of agreements follows the body of the summary. In addition, specific tasks and assignment of responsibilities identified by SC AV members for follow-up are also included. Online versions of the two presentations given at the meeting are available:
SC AV Meeting Day 1 Several initial activities were the focus of SC AV during the first day. In particular, the Chair identified the need to:
During these activities SC AV members raised questions, made comments, and offered suggestions for consideration. Review of SC AV Charge During the review of the charge, members questioned whether two areas might be considered as part of SC AV's charge:
The current Bath Profile includes Functional Area C for Cross-Domain searching. The question was whether or not this should be included in the National Profile. Also, members expressed a desire to respond to requirements for information retrieval against A&I databases. The chair noted that his concern is that we work
on the specifications in the charge first and recognize that this needs to be
done in a timely manner. If SC AV
agrees that we can respond to other functional requirements (e.g., include
cross-domain and A&I databases) and that these would be essential to making
the National Profile acceptable to NISO Voting members and the larger community
then we need to seriously consider expanding the charge and our
responsibilities. One approach
would be to consider lengthening this committee life and do what the charge says
first and then begin working on other functional areas. This topic was
revisited on Day 2 during a discussion of the scope of the Except for the concern about expanding the charge, the members accepted the charge as written. Another issue that arose during the discussion of the charge was the composition of SC AV. This came up in terms of the functional requirements for specifying Z39.50 use for A&I databases. Members suggested that it might be worthwhile to include representatives of the A&I vendors on the committee. The chair said he would work with NISO to identify one or two candidates to participate on SC AV. One aspect of the charge relates to work beyond the development of the draft standard. SC AV is to propose procedures for ongoing maintenance and revision of the National Profile. The chair suggested that a profile such as proposed for the National Profile is a more dynamic entity. Other members suggested that the National Profile needs to be reviewed more frequently than the typical NISO 5-year stipulation. There will likely be more requirements to be addressed by the profile, and there will need to be a process for revising and enhancing the profile. Orientation to NISO Standards Development Procedures Although some members of SC AV have served on other NISO committees, the orientation to NISO procedures was intended to ensure that all members were familiar with the procedures and members' responsibilities. The chair presented the orientation using a powerpoint presentation provided by NISO. That presentation is available online (see above). Important questions about NISO procedures and policies were raised:
While the Bath Profile Maintenance Agency has the responsibility for developing the procedures for the Bath Profile, there may be a need to get clarification from TC 46 that granted the status of "Internationally Registered Profile" on any requirements for changes to such a profile that would require another review by TC 46. The chair will contact Sally McCallum from TC 46 about this issue. On the issue of NISO copyright, the chair would check with NISO for a response. In terms of openness, the chair emphasized his concern that documents and information from SC AV are widely distributed for review and comment. He did assure members that prior to releasing for public dissemination working drafts of the profile, he would distribute them first to committee members for a review and comment, giving as much time as possible for such review and comment. The chair also suggested that committee members should feel free to distribute working drafts to the groups they are working with and are representing. Review of the Bath and Z Texas Profiles as Context for the National Profile The chair gave a presentation (available online, see above) to provide the context for the work of SC AV. The focus of the presentation was the Bath and Z Texas Profiles. He described what a profile is and why it is important, namely, to improve interoperability between communicating systems. During the presentation, SC AV members discussed both technical and other aspects of the profiles. Some of these related to the question of conformance. Others related to implementing the specifications in clients and servers. Committee members questioned particular specifications in the Bath Profile. The issue of potential relationship between the National Profile and the Bath Profile was also raised. There was agreement that the National Profile needs to clearly state its relationship with the Bath Profile. This should clearly state the National Profiles intention of using Bath specifications. This includes stating clearly where the National Profile extends Bath Profile specifications by indicating the national requirements and justification for responding to those national requirements. Another aspect concerns whether the National Profile should simply reference the specifications from Bath or duplicate them in the National Profile. A larger issue concerned basing an American National Standard on a set of specifications (i.e., the Bath Profile) that doesn't have the implicit or explicit stability that comes with the status of a national or international "standard". How can a National Standard reference something "less than" an formal standard? It will be important to clearly identify the "version" and "date" of the Bath Profile specifications used in the National Profile.
SC AV Meeting Day 2 SC AV faced an ambitious agenda for Day 2. The committee was able to address the following items:
The basis for discussions on these two items was a close walk through of the Bath Profile specifications. The committee also discussed some tasking and scheduling for future work. Issues not covered (e.g., dealing with holdings information) will be taken up at the next SC AV meeting in January. Prior to getting to the agenda items, several members discussed the role of guidance for local indexing of MARC records to support cross catalog searching. In particular, members discussed the role of such guidelines in relation to the National Profile. There was a sense that community agreement on indexing decisions to support cross-catalog searching will likely improve interoperability, but there was a question of adoption of such guidelines if they became part of the profile (i.e., prescribed rather than recommended). The committee agreed to look at the work being done on the indexing recommendations by the Texas Z39.50 Implementors Group (TZIG). Scope of a National Profile The charge to the committee identifies the scope of the profile, at least initially. Yet, the committee members recognized that other functional requirements can justifiably be considered for inclusion, such as searching A&I databases, cross-domain searching, etc. The committee agreed to brainstorm and identify a potential set of application areas that could be recommended for future action to NISO for action by this committee or a subsequent committee. The committee felt the National Profile should at least indicate possible areas of development even if the specifications would be included in subsequent version. This would emphasize the dynamic nature of the National Profile. In addition to the application areas defined in the current committee's charge, the committee identified the following (although did not prioritize the items at this time) that could be included in a National Z39.50 Profile for Library Applications:
One area that was also discussed was the use of Z39.50 for item ordering (which can be modeled as a form of interlibrary loan in which the item does not have to be returned). This was not included because of the input from committee members about the use of the emerging Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) and the existing Interlibrary Loan Protocol (ILL). The committee identified a critical need for additional discussion about the interworking of Z39.50, ILL, and NCIP. This is not the focus of the SC AV activities, but if the National Profile evolves with applications involving Z39.50 and ILL and NCIP, the interaction between the separate protocols will need to be addressed. The chair noted that in several instances in the list of applications there are existing Z39.50 profiles that may be referenced in a national profile for library applications. Specifically, there is a profile for catalog update, thesaurus search and retrieval, and geospatial information retrieval. The committee agreed that these application areas can be indicated as possible areas for development in the text of the National Profile. In addition, the committee will recommend consideration by NISO these application areas for subsequent work items for this committee or a subsequent committee involved with enhancing the National Profile. At subsequent SC AV meetings, if time permits, a recommended prioritization will be included in its recommendation to NISO. Structure of the National Profile To accommodate the various application areas described above, the SC AV members agreed to structure the profile in a modular fashion similar to the Bath Profile. There will be functional areas that group similar requirements (e.g., Library Catalog Search and Retrieval, Bibliographic Holdings Information Interchange). To the extent possible, the names of the functional areas will be aligned with the Bath Profile. However, committee members suggested that keeping the labeling of functional areas consistent with Bath (e.g., Functional Area A, B, C, etc.) may not be possible, and certainly not likely consistent with other Bath-based profiles (e.g., ONE-2). For the first version of the U.S. National Profile, Functional Areas A and B will be aligned with Bath. If the national profile develops other functional areas beyond cross-domain searching, it will assign letters for each functional area successively within the profile. The group also agreed to define, as in Bath, conformance levels for each functional area. However, there was a long discussion about what would go into each functional area. In general, there was agreement that the national profile will inherit the core specifications from the Bath Profile for each conformance level. However, the national profile may likely add requirements to the Bath Profile conformance levels. The group identified a useful labeling mechanism that maintains the basic conformance levels but allows additional requirements to be added for the national profile (see discussion of searching requirements below). Any additional specifications to Bath conformance levels must be clearly communicated in the profile. In general, there was a sense that the national profile must clearly communicate its relationship with the Bath Profile. The plan will be to accept the specifications for each of the Bath Profile Levels of Conformance, but to indicate U.S. additions to any particular area. Thus, there may be a U.S. Conformance Level 0 that has requirements beyond the parallel Conformance Level 0 specified in the Bath Profile. This could be extended by individual states to add their requirements to existing defined levels of conformance. The agreement was that US and state requirements extend and not reduce requirements for any level of conformance. There was also a suggestion for a Temporary Level. [Moen's note: Here is an example that I think carries out the spirit of this agreement. It uses structure and labeling conventions to indicate Bath, U.S., and, for example, Texas, Level 0 requirements.
Once this discussion ended, the committee moved on to discussing the Bath Profile specifications to determine their appropriateness and adequacy in the national profile.
Discussion of Bath Profile Functional Area A, Levels 0, 1, and 2 Search and Retrieval Bath Profile, Functional Area A, Level 0, defines four searches:
Committee members discussed the appropriateness of the author search defined for Level 0. The Bib-1 structure attribute of "normalized name" is somewhat ambiguous. Committee members suggested that this is really an unanchored phrase search. This search doesn't fit with the three other searches for this level, which are all keyword search. There was agreement that for the national profile to include at Level 0, an Author Search Keyword (which Bath defines as a Level 1 search). In addition, there was a proposal for a U.S. Level 1 search for Author -- Left-Anchored Truncation Search. There was also discussion about proper behavior for keyword queries. The client must send only one word as a search term when the Bib-1 structure attribute is Word. Multiple word search terms when treated as a keyword search must be formulated with Boolean operators. There is no clear semantics, however, to indicate to the server whether the search words should be matched within or across fields. The likely way to express a search within a field would be done with proximity search qualifier. Questions about what it means to conform to the searches were discussed. The general sense was that for a client to be conformant, for example, at Level 0, it must have the capability of sending each of the searches specified. This does not mean that the user interface must expose each of the searches. The client must simply be able to send the searches. Bath Profile, Functional Area A, Level 1 defines fifteen searches:
The Author Search — Keyword will be moved to U.S. Level 0. There were discussions about several of these searches, including the use of a generic standard identifier search. There is also a proposal to define Level 2 searching requirements in the Bath Profile. The proposed Level 2 searchers are:
In addition to these Bath Profile Level 2 searches, the group also looked at proposed searches in the Z Texas Profile. The Z Texas Profile is a compatible superset of Bath, Functional Area A, Level 0 and Level 1. But the Texas Z39.50 Implementors Group has identified and discussed the following additional searches:
Although the group did not get through a discussion on all of these searches, there were some tentative decisions reached about what might go into U.S. Level 1 searches. ISBN and ISSN searching should be considered for U.S. Level 1. Also, the Format-Material Type and Language searches should be considered for Level 1. As a starting point for Level 2, members agreed to accept the proposed Bath Profile Level 2 searching requirements. In reviewing the Z Texas proposed searches, there was discussion about handling the various controlled vocabulary searches. There was a question as to the utility of Sears when there is LC's Children's (Annotated Card Program?) listing that in some systems is separated from the regular LCSH index. Texas is also going to propose a new Use attribute to the Z39.50 Maintenance Agency for a Texas State Government Number. This raised the issue of whether there should be 50 such use attributes to address the various numbering and classification systems for state government documents. There was agreement that this needed more investigation (Bailey and Bray said they'd check further into this). Near the end of the meeting, there was a short discussion of retrieval requirements for Functional Area A. The Bath Profile specifies that at Level 0, clients and servers must both support 1) either UNIMARC or MARC 21; AND 2) SUTRS. The goal for specifying a combination of record syntaxes for both clients and servers was to improve interoperability. But there was serious questioning of the need for both servers and clients to support SUTRS at Level 0. At the Bath Profile Group Meeting in September, there was a decision to remove the XML requirement for retrieval at Level 0, but to retain the SUTRS requirement on both clients and servers. This change has been proposed by the Bath Profile Maintenance Agency and is being discussed. Moen said he would request that the decision on retrieval requirements for Bath Level 0 be extended to address the reasoning for the decisions. Discussion of retrieval requirements will continue at the January meeting.
Next Meetings and Tasking The group discussed the proposed January meeting in Washington, DC prior to ALA Midwinter. Because of schedule conflicts for several of the members representing vendors, the meeting will be held Wednesday and Thursday, Jan 10 and 11, 2001. NISO has identified a hotel for the meeting. (Embassy Suites Hotel at the Chevy Chase Pavilion (Friendship Hts., Metro/RedLine) on Connecticut Ave., Wash, DC.). Moen expects that a third meeting will be necessary and will determine a time in late March/early April that conflicts the least with people's schedules. The meeting will likely be in the Dallas area, but Denver is a possibility. For the January meeting, the goals will be to finalize Functional Area A for bibliographic search and retrieval, and tentatively agree on Functional Area B for holdings information interchange. Other potential agenda items will be a proposal to NISO for ongoing work on the profile and discussing the maintenance procedures for evolving the profile. SC AV member tasks between November and the January meeting are to:
The following list reflects agreements of SC AV based on discussions at its first meeting.
Chair:
Members:
[Date Page Last Revised: January 21, 2001 ] |
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