Well, as part of the OCKHAM project, we are working on a service which
provides Z39.50 access to any OAI-PMH compatible collection. On the
upside, there are a lot of OAI-PMH out-of-the box tools to get a
collection of non-MARC metadata OAI-PMH compatible; on the downside, it
will be at least a couple of months before we have a usable beta with
which to start working.

So, if you have a tight schedule on this, I would suggest looking at a
couple of different Z39.50 tools:

Yaz - http://www.indexdata.dk/yaz/
JZKit - http://www.k-int.com/products/jzkit/index.php (Java Z39.50
toolkit)

Also, if you are looking for a complete out-of-the-box solution, you
might try OCLC's SiteSearch software (now Open Source. It may be
overkill, but I thought I'd point it out) -
http://www.sitesearch.oclc.org/

-- jf

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Ben Ostrowsky
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 1:18 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Providing a Z39.50 interface to non-MARC records

The visionary gadfly in our office (also known as the Big Boss) asked
what
would be involved in making the information in a database available
through
Z39.50.  (I'm thinking about the fairly simple SQL database at
http://www.pinellascountyhistory.com/ .)

I know we'd have to have something that acts as a Z39.50 server, and
we'd
also have to have something that connects the first something to the
backend
database, mapping fields.

Can anyone suggest toolkits and/or point out things I should be
pondering?

Ben