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About the ProfileThe ProfileThe Maintenance AgencyResources |
2. Purpose and ScopeThe purpose of the Bath Profile is to identify those features of the Z39.50 standard that are required to allow effective use of Z39.50 software in a range of library applications, including search and retrieval of bibliographic data from library catalogues; transfer of holdings information; cross-domain searches between libraries, museums and archives; search and retrieval of authority records from online catalogues; updating union catalogues; item ordering and document delivery. Implementation of this profile by systems developers will improve interoperability among diverse systems and improve search and retrieval results within specific Functional Areas. The usefulness of the profile is twofold. First, it is intended to define a core set of functionality and Z39.50 specifications to enable international or extranational search and retrieval, especially when a Z-client does not have detailed information about one or more Z-servers. Second, the profile specifications provide the foundation for interoperability between Z-clients and Z-servers outside of the primary jurisdiction of regional, national, state, local, and project groups when their individual profiles incorporate the Bath Profile specifications. The core functionality and specifications defined in this profile are intended to serve as a true subset of regional, national, state, local, or project profiles. Where these do not contradict the specifications of this Profile, conformant clients and servers may additionally support searches and other functionality defined elsewhere. Information retrieval is not an end unto itself but rather one step within a larger activity such as interlibrary loan, cataloguing, reference, acquisitions or catalogue updating. For this reason, the profile will be developed incrementally to incorporate richer functionality that can address additional library applications. The primary goal of the profile is to increase the semantic interoperability between disparate systems so that end-users can use Z-clients to search catalogues and be confident that they have retrieved valid result sets. A key component of this profile is the characterization of the types of searching required by librarians and library users. To this end, the profile defines specific searches and how the semantics of those searches are to be expressed in the vocabulary of Z39.50. The profile does not prescribe local indexing decisions or practices, however, semantic interoperability may be threatened by local indexing decisions that serve local needs. Because the profile defines a core set of searches desired by users, implementors may use these searches to guide local indexing decisions. Terminology issues are ever-present in a document such as this. An example of such an issue is with terms such as "access points", "indexes", "fields", and "data elements". Often, the library community uses the phrase "search a particular field or fields", when at the system level, the search may be executed by matching the search term with entries in a system-generated index. Access points can be considered searchable fields of a record as represented by the index created from data from those fields. For Cross-Domain searching, the concept of "field" may be completely absent. In defining searches for library catalogs, the description references fields and indexes. In defining cross-domain searches, the description references data elements and indexes. It is anticipated that subsequent releases of the profile may incorporate, but not necessarily be limited to, the addition of the following functions:
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