From: "Mike Taylor" <m...@indexdata.com>
The irony is that Z39.50 actually make _much_ more effort to specify
semantics than most other standards -- and yet still finds itself in
the situation where many implementations do not respond correctly to
the BIB-1 attribute 6=3 (completeness=complete field) which is how
Eric should be able to do what he wants here.
Not that I have any good answers to this problem ... but I DO know
that inventing more and more replacement standards it NOT the answer.
Everything that's come along since Z39.50 has suffered from exactly
the same problem but more so.
I think this remains to be seen for SRU/CQL, in particular for the example
at hand, how to search for exact title. There are two related issues: one,
how arcane the standard is, and two, how closely implementations conform to
the intended semantics. And clearly the first has a bearing on the second.
And even I would say that Z39.50 is a bit on the arcance side when it comes
to formulating a query for exact title. With SRU/CQL there is an "exact"
relation ('exact' in 1.1, '==' in 1.2). So I would think there is less
excuse for a server to apply a creative interpretation. If it cannot support
"exact title" it should fail the search. With Z39.50 there is more perceived
latitude for a server to pretend it supports something it doesn't.
--Ray
