Sender: reedstrm@ece.rice.edu
Message-ID: <36E7FFA1.8FEEA89@rice.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 11:38:41 -0600
From: "Ross J. Reedstrom" <reedstrm@rice.edu>
Organization: NSBRI
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: hixson@frozenwave.com
CC: pgsql-interfaces@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [INTERFACES] Z39.50
References: <9903101206550B.00405@kashmir>
	<36E743E6.E4094203@alumni.caltech.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Thomas G. Lockhart wrote:
> 
> > I couldn't find anything in the PostgreSQL documentation regarding this
> > protocol.  Can Postgres natively speak Z39.50 or are there any third party
> > modules or software that will allow a request from a client application
> > requesting a query using Z39.50?
> 
> Postgres does not natively speak z39.50. afaik it is not widely used in
> the database community (or at least *my* db circles, which admittedly
> are not very wide :) and given that the standard came into existance 20
> years ago I would doubt that it is fresh enough to take over the world.

Ah yes, but there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio... err,
Thomas.

From some brief explorations, it looks like the Librarians have been
using it for a long time, but it is still current. There's the offical
standards site at:

http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/

which includes links to software, including free (looks like BSD-like
license, to me) tool kits, if you want to build something, and listing
some software vendors to contact. Looks like it's bigger in Europe than
here in the US.

Since the project I'm currently invoved with has a bibliographic
component, I'm glad you asked this question - I'd never seen this
standard before. I wonder what else the librarians are hiding over there
in that big building...

Ross
-- 
Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu> 
NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer
Computer and Information Technology Institute
Rice University, 6100 S. Main St.,  Houston, TX 77005