Hello: I'm wondering if anyone else has run into this situation with OCLC WorldCat Z39.50 servers. When we search Voilà (Canada's national union catalogue, built on WorldCat) <https://library-archives.canada.ca/eng/collection/basics/pages/voila.aspx> via Z39.50 for a record that is catalogued in French for ILL purposes, the resulting records contain corrupted characters where accented characters are expected. We're seeing this in Ex Libris Alma, where Voilà is an external search source maintained by Alma (we can't see the parameters Alma is using to connect). For example, searching Voilà for ISBN 9782920325241 returns a list of records for which the summaries display without accents. However, checking the MARC record itself shows that where there should be accents, there are instead literals in place of Unicode codepoints. The 245 for the first record returned for ISBN 9782920325241 appears as follows in Alma: 245 1 0 $$a R<U+00fd>ever le nouveau monde : $$b une <U+00fd>uvre d'art public de Michel Goulet offerte par la ville de Montr<U+00fd>eal <U+00fd>a la ville de Qu<U+00fd>ebec dans le cadre des c<U+00fd>el<U+00fd>ebrations du 400e anniversaire de sa fondation / $$c textes, Louise D<U+00fd>ery et Michel Goulet. - Where we see R<U+00fd>ever, we should see Rèver. - Where we see <U+00fd>uvre, we should see œuvre. - Where we see Montr<U+00fd>eal, we should see Montréal. - Where we see <U+00fd>a, we should see à. I don't *think *this is an example of a Unicode canonicalization into a normalized form using combining characters, as <U+00fd> is not a combining character. If that was the case, we would see <U+0301>e for é, <U+0300>a for à, etc. Instead, it looks like a case of corruption introduced by incorrect decoding. This can occur when the Z39.50 source uses UTF8 and the client interprets it as MARC8, or vice versa. That said, I have tested a few different approaches to querying Voilà using the yaz-client command line Z39.50 client (version 5.28.0 on Ubuntu), and it seems that Voilà itself might be returning the corrupted characters. For example, when I set the negotiation character set to MARC-8 (matching the LDR[09] of the returned record) and the display character set to UTF-8, the results on the screen and in the file show corruption: $ yaz-client -m testvoila.mrc Z> negcharset MARC-8 Character set negotiation : MARC-8 Z> charset Negotiation character set `MARC-8' Records in charset yes Charneg version 3 Display character set is `UTF-8' MARC character set is `none' Query character set is `none' Z> authentication USERNAME/PASSWORD Authentication set to Open (USERNAME/PASSWORD) Z> open fsz3950.oclc.org:210/gclacConnecting...OK. Sent initrequest. Connection accepted by v3 target. UserInformationfield: { OID: 1 2 840 10003 10 1000 17 1 { ANY (len=66) } } OCLC UserInformation: { motd 'You are searching the FirstSearch 5.0 Z39.50 Server!' dblist { 'laccat' } } Options: search present delSet triggerResourceCtrl scan sort extendedServices namedResultSets Elapsed: 0.167063 Z> find @attr 1=7 9782920325241 Sent searchRequest. Received SearchResponse. Search was a success. Number of hits: 6, setno 1 records returned: 0 Elapsed: 0.190875 Z> show Sent presentRequest (1+1). Records: 1 [laccat] Record type: USmarc 02802cam 2200685 a 4500 008 20081121s2008 quca b 000 p eng 015 $a 20089424808E $2 can 015 $a 20089424808 $2 can 016 $a (AMICUS)000034543125 016 7 $a 015299625 $2 Uk 020 $a 9782920325241 $q (Galerie de l'UQAM) 020 $a 2920325248 020 $a 9782980985249 $q (Galerie Simon Blais) 020 $a 2980985244 040 $a NLC $b eng $c NLC $d CDX $d BWX $d SUC $d UKMGB $d OCLCF $d NLC $d OCLCA $d REB $d OCLCA $d OCLCQ $d OCLCO 041 0 $a eng $a fre 043 $a n-cn-qu 050 4 $a N6549.G686 $b A4 2008 055 02 $a NB249* 055 3 $a N6549 G686 $b A4 2009 082 04 $a 730.92 $2 22 084 $a cci1icc $2 lacc 100 1 $a D�ery, Louise, $d 1955- 245 10 $a R�ever le nouveau monde : $b une �uvre d'art public de Michel Goulet offerte par la ville de Montr�eal �a la ville de Qu�ebec dans le cadre des c�el�ebrations du 400e anniversaire de sa fondation / $c textes, Louise D�ery et Michel Goulet. In the file with the downloaded record (looking at it with Vim in binary mode) you can see the same <fd> characters as we see in Alma for the same record: 02802cam 2200685 a 4500008004300000015002200043015002100065016002500086016001800111020003900129020001500168020004100183020001500224040008500239041001300324043001200337050002400349055001100373055002400384082001500408084001800423100002600441245024000467246005500707260004700762300005200809336002600861337002800887338002700915500002000942500003500962504005500997546003201052550006201084600002701146600003301173648002001206650004501226650006601271650006601337650004101403650002201444650003801466651001301504651002201517700002701539710002301566710002501589710002401614856009401638938004701732945000801779947003001787948014101817948003801958948004701996948002902043948003202072949001202104^^20081121s2008 quca b 000 p eng ^^ ^_a20089424808E^_2can^^ ^_a20089424808^_2can^^ ^_a(AMICUS)000034543125^^7 ^_a015299625^_2Uk^^ ^_a9782920325241^_q(Galerie de l'UQAM)^^ ^_a2920325248^^ ^_a9782980985249^_q(Galerie Simon Blais)^^ ^_a2980985244^^ ^_aNLC^_beng^_cNLC^_dCDX^_dBWX^_dSUC^_dUKMGB^_dOCLCF^_dNLC^_dOCLCA^_dREB^_dOCLCA^_dOCLCQ^_dOCLCO^^0 ^_aeng^_afre^^ ^_an-cn-qu^^ 4^_aN6549.G686^_bA4 2008^^02^_aNB249*^^ 3^_aN6549 G686^_bA4 2009^^04^_a730.92^_222^^ ^_acci1icc^_2lacc^^1 ^_aD<fd>ery, Louise,^_d1955-^^10^_aR<fd>ever le nouveau monde :^_bune <fd>uvre d'art public de Michel Goulet offerte par la ville de Montr<fd>eal <fd>a la ville de Qu<fd>ebec dans le cadre des c<fd>el<fd>ebrations du 400e anniversaire de sa fondation /^_ctextes, Louise D<fd>ery et Michel Goulet. If anyone has run into this with OCLC WorldCat Z39.50 and figured out a solution, I would love to hear it. It would even be helpful to know if you have a connection to an OCLC WorldCat Z39.50 server and aren't seeing these kinds of problems. I know most of you probably won't have authentication credentials for Voilà, but the setup has to be the same for other OCLC WorldCat Z39.50 servers... right? In Z39.50 and character encoding madness, I remain, Dan