> Has anyone on this list considered
> this option or tried it out?

We (and no doubt many others) have been using Innovative's Z39.50 server with our metasearch and link resolver systems -- not with a yaz-proxy/SRU interface on top, but just directly using Z39.50 clients.

It works well with our link resolver, since in that context we are doing known item searches, usually with a standard number.  And it gives us back availability and journal holdings data probably better than the other ILS systems we work with.

It doesn't work as well in our metasearch environment, however.  There are number of bugs with how the keyword search is implemented in the Z39.50 server, which I've never been able to resolve (would love for someone to correct me here).  It reports erroneous hit counts and sorts the records in system id order (so oldest records come back first), and is sometimes flaky when implemented for an Innreach system.  It really is quite horrible.

--Dave

-------------------
David Walker
Library Web Services Manager
California State University
http://xerxes.calstate.edu

________________________________

From: Code for Libraries on behalf of Karen Coombs
Sent: Thu 5/15/2008 10:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Life after Expect



There are some very useful things one can get back from III via Z39.50.
Terry Resse from OSU showed me that if you send a Z39.50 request for the
"opac" syntax you can actually get back holdings information and whether or
not something is checked out. I had no trouble playing around with this via
the Z39.50 piece of MARC edit and getting back the data I wanted.

Based on this info and reading about yaz-proxy, I've been hoping that by
implementing yaz-proxy that I might setup an SRW/U service for III. Has
anyone on this list considered this option or tried it out?

Karen