Re: [Koha-zebra] Koha & zebra (continuing to try to understand...)

[Mike Taylor]

Seb's answered almost all your follow-up questions, so I'll just deal
with the left-overs.

> Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2005 16:21:07 +0200
> From: Paul POULAIN <address@hidden>
>
>> (To be clear, this is a completely separate Perl module from
>> Net::Z3950, which is a general Z-client module that will work
>> against and Z39.50 server.  That one _is_ maintained and
>> supported.)
> 
> imho, you should update the doc, as it has been a real trouble for
> me.  But now i'm aware ;-)

OK.  If you can tell me exactly what prose in what document is
involved (e.g. by URL), I will fix it.

> Last question on this topic : zoom is claimed as something like a
> part of zing.

Yes.

> zing being an international project, that could become a NISO
> standard or something like this.

Not really -- ZING is an umbrella for several related but separated
networked-IR technologies, some of which may become formally
standardised and some of which may not.  There are moves afoot in the
SRW Editorial Board to start a standardisation process, most likely
with either Oasis or NISO, for SRU (including CQL).  I'm not aware
that anyone's talked about doing the same for ZOOM.  (It would be
great to do, but, as is so often the case, no-one seems to want it
enough to fund it.)

> zoom is an indexdata baby it seems.

Again, not really.  If you check the acknowledgements at the top of
the Abstract API at
        http://zoom.z3950.org/api/zoom-1.4.html
you'll see that besides Seb and Adam (Index Data), there have also
been significant contributions from Ashley Sanders (Manchester
University), Rob Sanderson (Liverpool University) and Aaron Lav (no
idea what his institutional affiliation is).  Plus of course when ZOOM
was launched I wasn't working for ID myself.

So ZOOM is best viewed as the output of an altruistic ad-hoc
consortium.

> what kind of -official- relations is there between zoom & zing ?

The ZOOM API is officially part of the ZING initiative, as you can see
from the list of ZING components at:
        http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/zing/

>>> 5- partial search.
>>> But we have no tools to search at all, that's a pity, I agree ;-)
>>
>> Why not?  You can use the Net::Z3950 module to search in Zebra.
> 
> Yes, but I mean internal koha search. when you are in catalogue
> module, for example, and want to edit "the two towers" books, you
> 1st need to search it. and without #5, you won't be able to search
> anymore.

I concur with Seb.  You should just fire Z39.50 queries at Zebra,
using the Net::Z3950 module.  It's very easy to do.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <address@hidden>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "The poor quality of Microsoft Windows costs the world economy
         $170 billion per year in lost productivity due to crashes" --
         Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 28, 2001.