Whither z39.50?

[Tony Barry]

At 1:57 PM 22/8/97, Nick Arnett wrote:
>I'm taking one of my periodic looks at z39.50, with an eye toward whether or
>not Verity should add support for it to our products.  Does anyone know of a
>source for estimating the installed base?  Opinions about its future,
>anecdotal evidence, rants and raves are welcome, especially the degree to
>which it is making progress outside of the library community.

Most major ILMS vendors now support it.  The take up in Australian
Universities is I think about one third but I don't think anybody has exact
figures.  I think the take up in the UK is possibly higher.

The GILS project in the US mandates it so I would have though with that
push there will be an assured market.

I would see it being used more as a mechanism for multiple databases to be
searched simultaneously rather than anything else.  I also expect that
z39.50 clients will mainly be used by power users and the bulk of access
with be via http-z39.50 gateways.

OCLC and RLG are both offering access to their services via z39.50 and the
two big database providers offer both z39.50 and web access.

While it is something that most major libraries specify that they want the
take up has not been enthusiastic.

Tony

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