Dear Kevin, You working on a very interesting project to say the least. I can only give you some points to ponder...
Z39.50 does support searching various types of records, including Dublin Core (DC), MODS, & MARCXML [1]. I thought PubMed uses DC as their metadata format [2]. Probably it would be useful for you to study the Dublin Core Metada Initiative (DCMI) which is basically a metadata schema for description of web documents. There are lot of tools available on the DCMI home page [3]. If you are building a gateway to search resources hosted over the web OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting [4] might be more suitable than Z39.50. OAI-PMH separates the data providers from service providers. Service providers [5] are like federated search engines which is more efficient that Z39.50-based federated engines. An example of such service is OAIster (http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/b/bib/bib-idx?c=oaister;page=simple). [1] http://www.loc.gov/z3950/lcserver.html#prst [2] http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=11465690 [3] http://dublincore.org/tools/ [4] http://www.openarchives.org/ [5] http://www.openarchives.org/service/listproviders.html Regards, Saiful On 9/1/05, KEVIN ZEMBOWER <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have a general, perhaps philosophical, question. I'm trying to make my > collection of reference material on reproductive health called POPLINE (check > it out at www.popline.org) available through what I thought were Z39.50 > servers. I was basing this assumption on what I thought was a Z39.50 client > in a program called Endnote that the researchers in my organization use to > search other medical databases, such as PubMed > (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi). I always just assumed that > this was a Z39.50 client and responding with MARC records, until a librarian > I'm working with to understand MARC told me that MARC's main purpose is to > catalog monographs, and that it's not particularly well suited to represent > articles in journals and periodicals. > > Further research on the PubMed site now leads me to believe that Endnote must > have written a client that allows it to search PubMed on port 80 and get > answers in XML format. I'm going to ask this question of the PubMed support > list, but can anyone on this list tell me off the top of their head if this > is correct or not? > > If this is correct, I'm faced with a problem. About a quarter of the entries > in POPLINE are monographs and the rest are articles appearing in periodicals. > Should I try to force this into a MARC format and use a Z39.50 server to > allow access? Or, should I write an HTTP API and allow searches on port 80 > and return information in XML? I'd like to be as similar to any standard or > de facto standard, such as PubMed, as possible, to aid in adoption and ease > of use. Is there a well-accepted standard for articles in journals similar to > MARC if MARC shouldn't be used? Should I, or even can I, write a Z39.50 > server that returns a result in MARC if it was a monograph, or in XML if it > was an article? > > Finally, I know this list is specifically about the use of perl in libraries, > and I'm taking quite a liberty asking these questions here. Is there another, > more broadly focused list that I should be asking questions like this on? > > Thank you for all your advice and suggestions. > > -Kevin Zembower > > ----- > E. Kevin Zembower > Internet Systems Group manager > Johns Hopkins University > Bloomberg School of Public Health > Center for Communications Programs > 111 Market Place, Suite 310 > Baltimore, MD 21202 > 410-659-6139 > -- Saiful Amin Information Specialist Edutech India 8 Khader Nawaz Khan Road Chennai 600006, India Tel: +91 44 2833 0999 GSM: +91 98407 76214 Fax: +91 44 2833 1777 www.edutechindia.com "Enhancing knowledge and skills for success, lifelong."
