Clackmannanshire Library Service maintains its catalogue in a MySQL database, and makes it available to search on the web using a set of PHP scripts. In early 2005, the library joined CAIRNS, the Co-operative Information Retrieval Network for Scotland, which provides a simple interface for searching across forty catalogues nationwide.
In order to expose the catalogue data to the CAIRNS metasearcher, the Clackmannanshire database needed to quickly acquire a Z39.50 server that could use the existing database without requiring any change to the data structures. Enter zSQLgate:
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 14:24:11 +0100
From: Daniel Champion <dchampion@clacks.gov.uk>zSQLgate proved to be the ideal solution for us. We were faced with producing a z39.50 interface for a bespoke library system in a very short timescale as part of the CAIRNs project. Without your expert assistance and helpful support we would never have achieved that target. We're delighted with the end result, and look forward to extending the system in the future.
The Clackmannanshire Z39.50 server is now available for public use on z39.50s://clackman.dsvr.co.uk:9999/default and is included in the broadcast searches executed by CAIRNS at cairns.lib.strath.ac.uk/CAIRNSService/ZCatSrch.cfm
Feedback to
<mike@sql.z3950.org>
is welcome!