Nathan, It's totally do-able. We have a similar system in place for our subject portal (http://trilogy.brynmawr.edu/guides ). We're using the YAZ toolkit with PHP (as opposed to rails). But in the admin module, library staff search and WSYWIG edit the catalog for records to import, and they're updated daily). One thing you may need to do, however, is to have III modify your z39.50 profile to include the bibid (935) it'll make a big difference.
- adam _____________________________________ Tri-Colleges Systems Coordinator Bryn Mawr | Haverford | Swarthmore 610.526.5294 -----Original Message----- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Walker, David Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 11:32 AM To: CODE4LIB@listserv.nd.edu Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Z39.50 for III Database? Here is the class code for my screen scraper. Rather simple, but can be useful in certain cases. http://xerxes.calstate.edu/source/iii/InnopacWeb.zip --Dave ------------------- David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu ________________________________ From: Code for Libraries on behalf of Godmar Back Sent: Tue 5/1/2007 3:32 PM To: CODE4LIB@listserv.nd.edu Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Z39.50 for III Database? If I may follow up on an earlier discussion [ relevant parts are included below ] regarding how to extract holdings information from III or other catalogs. I have one thing to offer and 1 thing to request. I'll start with the offering: MAJAX. MAJAX is a JavaScript library that screenscrapes III catalogs and can include the results so obtained into any document served from the same domain. URL of the current code is http://libx.org/majax/majax.html ; a demo is at http://libx.org/majax/majaxtest4.html ) After an initial, somewhat clumsy approach, we've now adopted an approach that's similar to COinS. For instance, to include holdings information for a book into a website, all you have to do is include a <span class="majax-showholdings" title="iXXXXXXXXX"></span> in your HTML, and include MAJAX via a single <script> element, which will result in that SPAN being replaced with the holdings of the book with ISBN XXXXXXX. Also support bibrecord number and title. It's so easy a cave librarian could do it. It can be done directly from the WebBridge management panel for those of you have are damned to use WebBridge. Of course, the underlying JavaScript API is still available for more advanced users. MAJAX has been released under the LGPL. Now for the thing to request. Are there any reusable, open source scripts out there that implements a REST interface that screenscrapes or otherwise efficiently accesses a III catalog? David and James have provided links, but no code. I would be grateful for anything I could reuse and don't have to reimplement. Here's what I envision: Interface: REST Input: search terms/type - maybe OpenURL v0.1-syntax, or another adopted standard, or something custom, but ideally simple. Output: XML - maybe Marc XML with 852 (or whatever the number is) holdings records - similar to what David's screen scrape test provides. Ideally XML that comes with a schema and validates against it. Maybe JSON like James's scripts (?) Implementation: Something that a cave librarian could deploy - good candidates are PhP and possibly Perl-based cgi, but one could conceive of others. Nothing that requires elaborate server setups or installing custom frameworks. Thank you for any pointers/suggestions you may have. - Godmar On 3/4/07, Birkin James Diana <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mar 1, 2007, at 5:23 PM, Walker, David wrote: > > > http://walkertr.csusm.edu/scrape/test.htm > > Very cool; works on our III catalog! > > Nathan Mealy -- I also used the screenscrape method to get info we > needed for a couple of ISBN-based projects, not knowing at the time > about the yaz-z39.50-OPAC option. > > By implementing this in the form of a web-service, I can switch the > work-horse code without affecting other apps, and minimize session > concerns. > > <http://dl.lib.brown.edu/soa_services/josiah_status/examples.php> > <http://dl.lib.brown.edu/soa_services/josiah_status/tests/ > InfoHolderTest.php> > > (The returned json info is more comprehensible via view-source.) > > --- > Birkin James Diana > Programmer, Web Services > Brown University Library > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >