A Resource Discovery Service for the Library of Texas Requirements, Architecture, and Interoperability Testing William E. Moen, Ph.D. Principal Investigator

A Resource Discovery Service for the Library of Texas

Requirements, Architecture, and Interoperability Testing

William E. Moen, Ph.D.Principal Investigator

<[email protected]>

CNI Fall Task Force MeetingDecember 5, 2002San Antonio, Texas

William E. Moen CNI Task Force Meeting -- December 5, 2002 2

Library of Texas

A Virtual LibraryReaching Across Boundaries to

Extend Access to A Range of

Information Resources

• Collection Boundaries

• Organizational Boundaries

• Format Boundaries


ZLOT Project

ZLOT ProjectResource discovery service•Search/retrieval interface •Virtual catalog

TIF Board

Library of Texas• Resource discovery service• Commercial online

databases• Preserving electronic

government documents• Training librarians

TSLACFY 2001 - 2005

TXCDKFY 2002 -2003


ZLOT Project

• Z Implementation Component of the Library of Texas

• Developing a standards-based approach for the virtual library

• Project Focus• Identifying requirements for resource discovery

across library catalogs and online databases• Demonstrating feasibility and utility of resource

discovery tools


Resource Discovery


Finding & Exposing

• Finding: Users can find only what’s been exposed

• Exposing: How content is exposed determines the how and if user can find it

• Goal: Connect users to information • Strategy: Interoperability on multiple levels• Tactic: Common agreements for exposing and

finding– Protocols– Syntaxes– Semantics


ZLOT Components

Functional Requirements

Technology InventoryAssessment

Proof of Concept

Evaluation

Service-Based Architecture

Technical Requirements

&Specifications



• Key Players– Advisory Group – Focus Groups

• Requirements– Virtual Catalog– Search and Retrieval

Interface– Search Interface– Retrieval Interface

• Priorities1. Must Have2. Should Have3. Nice to Have

Resource Discovery Service

Virtual Catalog

Search & Retrieval Interface


Common Interface —Diverse Resources


ZLOT Components


Proof of Concept

Evaluation



&Specifications

Technology Inventory Assessment


Texas Library Landscape

• Libraries:– 165 academic libraries – 550 public libraries

• Holdings:– Academic: 33,458,000– Public: 27,466,300

• Technology: – ZLOT Technology Inventory and Assessment Survey– 53% response rate


Technology Assessment:Z39.50 Servers

31%

43%

84%

65%58% 61%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Academic Public Sample

Included

Running


Technology Assessment:Z39.50 Clients

51%43%

78%

55%

68% 64%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%


Included

Running


Technology Assessment:Library Websites


Have website 100% 62% 69%

Hosted in library 45% 40% 42%

Maintained by library 81% 70% 73%


Technology Assessment:Internet Access

Fastest Connection

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%


ISDN at 128 Kbps

T-1 (1.544 Mbps)

T-3 (45 Mbps)


ZLOT Components



Evaluation



&Specifications

Proof of Concept


Proof of Concept

• Assess feasibility of functional requirements through prototypes

• Examine capabilities of vendor products• Identify challenges

– Z39.50 access to library catalogs– Concurrent searching– Interface design

• Participation by 11 library technology vendors


Proof of Concept: Resource Discovery Service

1. 22 - Z39.50 Catalogs

2. 6 - Web Catalogs

3. 10 - TexShare Databases

4. Texas Records and Information Locator

Resources Middleware Interface1. Broadcast Searching

a. Similar Resources

b. Dissimilar Resources

2. Common Retrieval Display

1. Translates Searches

2. Formats Retrievals

3. Interacts with Multiple IR Systems

Information Retrieval Systems

10 Vendor Prototypes


ZLOT Components



Proof of Concept



&SpecificationsEvaluation


Evaluation

• Evaluation plan for the Library of Texas– Goals, objectives, outcomes, and indicators

for 4 LOT components

• Assessment of Proof of Concept prototypes– Systematic evaluation of prototypes against

functional requirements– Inform Technical Requirements &

Specifications


Sample Results

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

Functional Requirement

Per

cen

tag

e o

f R

equ

irem

ent

NO 8.3% 2.8% 75.0% 69.4% 25.0%

SOMEWHAT 5.6% 13.9% 5.6% 8.3% 19.4%

YES 86.1% 77.8% 2.8% 44.6% 16.7% 13.9% 38.9%

UND 5.6% 16.7% 55.6% 83.3% 8.3% 16.7%

SRI1 SRI2 SRI11 SRI12 SRI13 SRI14 SRI16


ZLOT Components



Proof of Concept

Evaluation


&Specifications



Service-CentricVirtual Library

UserGroups

Resources

Technology

Management

SERVICES


User-Driven Services

LIBRARY SERVICES

UserGroup

UserGroup

UserGroup

UserGroup

LibraryResources

LibraryTechnology


Architecture

PROVIDER LAYER

SERVICES LAYER

USER LAYER

Communication Protocols

Communication Protocols


Provider Layer

PROVIDER LAYER

DigitalContent

Librarian Library Supplier

Provider Type Dependent on VL Service

ResourceDiscovery

Service

Virtual Reference

Service

ILLService

DocumentOrder/Delivery

Service


Services Layer

Standard Information Interchange Among Services

Reference Financial

Resource Discovery

Resource Access

PersonalizationAuthentication


Resource Discovery:Functional View

1. TexShare Databases

2. E-books

3. Electronic Archive of Government Information

4. Statewide Virtual Catalog

Content or Resource Collections

Representations of Resources1. Proprietary Records

2. Indices of Full-text Files

3. Dublin Core Metadata Records

4. MARC Records

MIDDLEWARELOT Search &

Retrieval Interface1. Broadcast Searching

a. Similar Resources

b. Dissimilar Resources

2. Common Retrieval Display

1. Translates Searches

2. Formats Retrievals

3. Interacts with Multiple IR Systems

Middleware

Information Retrieval Systems


Resource Discovery: Functions

Browse

Collection Selection

Evaluation

Query

Common User Interface


Resource Discovery:Architecture

DIGITAL CONTENT

SERVICES LAYER

USER LAYER

TexShare TRAIL VC Others

Resource Discovery

Library Home Office Mobile

Personalization

Authentication

Z39.50

HTTP

SOAP

SOAP

OTHER


ZLOT Components



Proof of Concept

Evaluation



&Specifications


Technical Requirements & Specifications

• Refinement of functional requirements– Based on Proof of Concept experience– Formal assessment of prototypes– Vendor responses on functional requirements– Evolving understanding of the requirements

• Specifications of standards to improve interoperability


Interoperability Factors

• Multiple and disparate systems

• Multiple protocols

• Multiple data formats, syntax, metadata schemes

• Multiple vocabularies, ontologies, disciplines

• Multiple languages, Multiple character sets

• Indexing, word normalization, and word extraction policies


Z-INTEROP Testbed

• Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed Project

• A Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant

• Goal: Improve Z39.50 semantic interoperability among libraries for information access and resource sharing


Z-INTEROP Components

• Test dataset– 400,000 MARC 21 records from OCLC’s WorldCat

• Z39.50 reference implementations– Z-client, Z-server, information retrieval system

• Test scenarios & searches– Searches with known result records from dataset

• Benchmarks– Results of test searches against reference

implementations


ZLOT & Z-INTEROP

• ZLOT resource discovery service specifies support for: – Z39.50 – Z39.50 profiles

• Z-INTEROP can be used to assist libraries and vendors in Z39.50 configuration and testing

• Improve user confidence in resource discovery service


Issues

• Optimizing resource discovery – Concurrent / Broadcast searching

performance– Z39.50 interoperability– Non-Z39.50 information providers– Static union v. dynamic virtual catalogs

• Users and usability– Interface design for various target audiences– Defining collection sets for searching


Issues

• Standards and emerging technologies– XML– Web services– OpenURL– Z39.50 International: Next Generation

• Search / Retrieve for the Web

• Access control, authorization, and authentication

• Management for collaborative services– Governance– Policy


William E. Moen

[email protected]

LOT

<http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/lot>

ZLOT Project

<http://www.unt.edu/zlot/>

Z-INTEROP Project

<http://www.unt.edu/zinterop/>

Texas Center for Digital Knowledge

<http://www.txcdk.org/>

Documents

A Resource Discovery Service for the Library of Texas Requirements, Architecture, and Interoperability Testing William E. Moen, Ph.D. Principal Investigator