[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Adding Z39.50 target

[Deanna Frazee]

Thanks, Benjamin and Dan, I think you've got me on the right track now!

Deanna


-----Original Message-----
From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Dan Scott
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 2:04 PM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Adding Z39.50 target

Hi Deanna:

On Wed, 2010-07-28 at 13:47 -0500, Deanna Frazee wrote:
> Our catalogers would like for me to add several z39.50 targets for
> sites they regularly search for MARC records.  I have input the host,
> port and database name for a couple of targets, but I cannot get
> Evergreen to let me search them.  These are sites that do not require
> usernames and passwords, and I am on release 1.6.0.6.  Any
> suggestions?

Along with the host, port, and database name, you also need to enter the
Z39.50 server attributes for the server. A small, teeny, tiny hitch is
that there is no interface for this in 1.6.0.x.

Luckily, from the database level this is pretty straightforward. If you
just want to clone the Library of Congress attribute settings for a
given server with the shortname 'foo', go into psql and issue the
following SQL statement:

INSERT INTO config.z3950_attr
   SELECT 'foo', name, label, code, format, truncation
     FROM config.z3950_attr WHERE source = 'loc';

You might need to adjust some of the attributes (truncation, in
particular, differs from server to server), but this is a fast way to
populate your database.

I made a dump of our Evergreen instance's set of Z39.50 servers
available at
http://coffeecode.net/archives/216-Evergreen-1.6-Z39.50-target-servers-for-academics.html - this might be a reasonable starting point for others to build a common set of configuration settings. Wouldn't it be nice to have a database of databases that we could select from to add to our Evergreen instances without any configuration pain?